The Forge Archives

General Forge Forums => Actual Play => Topic started by: John Kim on May 08, 2003, 09:38:29 PM

Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: John Kim on May 08, 2003, 09:38:29 PM
Hi,

Just out of curiousity, I decided to run the results of this through some stats to look at what the distribution of results were.  I have a web page with the results, up at

http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/theory/theforge/profiling.html

I find it pretty interesting.  

I had to edit a bunch of the entries -- i.e. so that games all used the same name version.  I went with listing by rules system, and adding in the setting, variant, etc. in a note.  With each entry is a list of who voted for that (by their Forge username).  If I accidentally mixed up an entry, let me know.
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Ron Edwards on May 08, 2003, 09:51:51 PM
Hi John,

I'd sure be interested to see what each of the Profiling threads so far look like in such an analysis. John, is doing this a pain in the butt? If not, that would be a wonderful thing.

People who haven't cruised John's website in general are really missing out.

Best,
Ron
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Jason Lee on May 08, 2003, 09:56:21 PM
You rock my lame ass for doing this.
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Christopher Kubasik on May 08, 2003, 10:13:10 PM
That's really cool.

A tiny note (which might not be easy to fix, but I think is worth fixing):

Depending on who posted, Hero Wars and Hero Quest got broken into two seperate games on the tally.  This was significant especially on the Want to Play, which had Hero Wars for 9 and Hero Quest for 4.  I'd offer that for most folks, the difference between the two edition in terms of desire to play is insignificant.

Christopher
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Paul Czege on May 08, 2003, 10:50:59 PM
Hey John,

Just to clarify, that "most want to play" of mine was actually Kaybabe...essentially Trollbabe, but with the fantasy setting filed off in favor of an early 1900s where the player characters are female wrestlers and strongwomen working for a travelling circus. The idea was inspired by my discovery of this page.

Paul
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Lance D. Allen on May 08, 2003, 11:56:07 PM
A few things I noticed:

Changeling and Changeling: the Dreaming are the same game. The latter is simply the full name.

You've got Vampire: the Masquerade listed in two different locations on the favorites section.

Very interesting list, though, but oddly not surprising. A lot of people have Sorcerer and TRoS listed as want-to-plays, but not a lot have TRoS as favorite games. This suggests to me that it isn't getting the exposure it should.
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Gordon C. Landis on May 08, 2003, 11:58:00 PM
Quote from: Christopher KubasikThat's really cool.

A tiny note (which might not be easy to fix, but I think is worth fixing):

Depending on who posted, Hero Wars and Hero Quest got broken into two seperate games on the tally.  This was significant especially on the Want to Play, which had Hero Wars for 9 and Hero Quest for 4.  I'd offer that for most folks, the difference between the two edition in terms of desire to play is insignificant.


For me - yup, Christopher's right.  HeroWars/Quest, doesn't matter - I just want to try it.

Gordon
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: John Kim on May 09, 2003, 12:11:29 AM
Quote from: Paul CzegeJust to clarify, that "most want to play" of mine was actually Kaybabe...essentially Trollbabe, but with the fantasy setting filed off in favor of an early 1900s where the player characters are female wrestlers and strongwomen working for a travelling circus.
Hmmm, so should I list that as Trollbabe with the note of it being a variant in an alternate setting?
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Paul Czege on May 09, 2003, 12:32:39 AM
Hmmm, so should I list that as Trollbabe with the note of it being a variant in an alternate setting?

Yep.

Paul
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Stuart DJ Purdie on May 09, 2003, 04:16:16 AM
Quote from: WolfenA lot of people have Sorcerer and TRoS listed as want-to-plays, but not a lot have TRoS as favorite games. This suggests to me that it isn't getting the exposure it should.

I'd disagree.  I'd say that its indicative that many people are aware of it (hence many want to play), but have not been able to rustle up a group yet.  Recall that Ron's wording on the thead:

Quote from: Ron EdwardsWhat three role-playing games, out of ALL the ones you've EVER played, have you enjoyed the most?
What three role-playing games that you have NOT played would you most like to try at the moment?

Each group is mutually exclusive, and note that the first extends back in time indefinatly.  RoS is fairly new
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: John Kim on May 09, 2003, 08:02:07 PM
Quote from: Ron EdwardsI'd sure be interested to see what each of the Profiling threads so far look like in such an analysis. John, is doing this a pain in the butt? If not, that would be a wonderful thing.

People who haven't cruised John's website in general are really missing out.
First of all, thanks for the recommendation.  

As for doing it for the other threads, well, it would be somewhat laborious.  What I did to do this was: (1) Cut-and-pasted each of the entries into a single text file.  (2) Editted out irregularities, comments, and so forth.  Mispellings and differences in how the entries are written out are common (not to mention hard-to-interpret things like "Kaybabe").  (3) Run them through a quickly-written Perl script to calculate the distribution and make the HTML.  

I can run the same script on other stuff, but getting the hand-written entries into a regular format is the laborious part.  What the format is doesn't matter much.
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: jdagna on May 09, 2003, 11:22:19 PM
Maybe what we need for future profiling is to start with an HTML form fed to a PERL script, which could give us the results in some regular format.  Then, the only hand work required would be to fix irregularities in names and game variants.

It's definitely interesting being able to see the results summary.
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: John Kim on May 23, 2003, 09:05:46 PM
Hi, so I updated the Spring 2003 results, and I also added in the Fall 2002 responses.  Like I predicted, it took about 2 or 3 hours to regularize all the responses.  As Justin suggested I should prepare a CGI for the next profiling, if that's agreeable.  Ideally, it should post to a thread as well as collecting statistics, but I'm not sure if that can work.  

I have a link for the two profilings at:

http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/theory/theforge/

- John
Title: Distribution of the Spring 2003 Profiling
Post by: Ron Edwards on May 23, 2003, 09:11:21 PM
Dag.

John, this is a great thing and a lot of work. Thanks.

Best,
Ron