The role of fortune

[Green]

A non-secret bidding system isn't random. I don't know what's going to happen, of course, but I can figure out what you'll want and bid appropriately. Consider a mechanic like Poker where I bid one, you bid two, I bid three, you bid five... until eventually I don't have faith in my hand enough to bid more. Now consider changing that "faith" to "desire", the desire to win this conflict: the more I want my character to win the conflict, the more I'm willing to bid, the more I'm willing to spend. It's definitely not random. It's no more random than a move in a strategy game: I don't know what you're going to do next, but I have a pretty good idea, and when you do something else, everyone goes "ooOOooooo!"

This is precisely how Kathanaksaya works, as will its current incarnation, Dramatikos.

[Sven Seeland]

3: A non-secret bidding system isn't random. I don't know what's going to happen, of course, but I can figure out what you'll want and bid appropriately. Consider a mechanic like Poker where I bid one, you bid two, I bid three, you bid five... until eventually I don't have faith in my hand enough to bid more. Now consider changing that "faith" to "desire", the desire to win this conflict: the more I want my character to win the conflict, the more I'm willing to bid, the more I'm willing to spend. It's definitely not random. It's no more random than a move in a strategy game: I don't know what you're going to do next, but I have a pretty good idea, and when you do something else, everyone goes "ooOOooooo!"

Yes, agreed, that's not random. What I was talking about was secret bidding. Bidding for a scene in Universalis is secret (to my understanding). Everyone picks a number of coins, holds them in their hands and they are all presented simultaniously. The one with the most coins frames the next scene. That's pretty random in my eyes.

Anyway, I'm losing track of this discussion. May I reiterate?
1) Random mechanics can be used as scapegoats in conflict.
2) Random mechanics can be used as scapegoats for failure (of a single person).
3) Random mechanics can be used as an inspiration for creativity (see Emily's example or random encounter tables).

And I want to add one more, which is a bit more complicated:
4) Random mechanics can be used as a crutch for players who are unfamiliar with the system.

Let me explain: When I start playing a new system which I have never played before, which I have only read. Maybe not even that. I am then asked to create a character and make several other relevant choices. Since I'm not familiar with the game I don't really know which choices get me the result I anticipate. Random mechanics can help greatly since they'll ensure that things go smoothly. This holds especially true for character creation. I can just roll up a character and I can be sure that it'll be okay and not have any major flaws in it. I also don't have to bother studying the game in detail in order to get going, I can just play.

This actually leads me to
5) Random mechanics can be used as a shortcut around tactical considerations

Since some players (like me) despise tactical thinking in games it's oftentimes easier to just let the dice decide for you. Instead of pondering what might be the best decision in any given situation you just throw the dice and roll with it. If it turns out to be less than optimal you can view it as a challenge and blame fate. And it doesn't apply only to gamist tactical thinking. Maybe you don't care to really get into character or the drama of the story to make a relevant point and think about deep issues. Just let the dice decide. The whole thing probably comes down to creative agenda. I guess this whole point is about simulationist play, where you really don't care whether you're making a meaningful statement or a tactically sound choice. This blends in with the scapegoat principle so I don't know whether it's valid to make it a point in itself.

And while I'm at it I might as well add
6) Random mechanics can be used to simulate the outcome of an action
which is purely sim play. I don't think this needs a whole lot of explaining.

Hope that helped. At least for me it made things clearer.

Did I miss anything?

[Halzebier]

Yes, agreed, that's not random. What I was talking about was secret bidding. Bidding for a scene in Universalis is secret (to my understanding). Everyone picks a number of coins, holds them in their hands and they are all presented simultaniously. The one with the most coins frames the next scene. That's pretty random in my eyes.

Sorry, but this is not random, because the outcome rests on human decisions.  (The moreso because coins are a limited resource and the people involved have an incentive not to just come up with a number X, where X ranges from the minimum to the maximum number of biddable coins. Please note that even this would not be random, because you could play mind games, even in a single instance of bidding.)

I think the term you are looking for is "hard to predict" or, more to the point, the expression "so hard to predict that I think it's a bother".

I can see how a player might want to (a) use dice "as a crutch" to avoid such mind games (e.g. "I'm gonna bid 1d6 coins because I'm tired of outguessing Bob.") or (b) avoid bidding systems altogether because they give him a headache. The mental effort involved (or losing at such a mind game) may simply not be to one's tastes.

(It's why I personally don't like chess - it's too much effort.)

Regards,

Hal

[Sven Seeland]

Well, I'm certainly not looking at a mathematically precise term for randomness here. What I mean is "uncertainty" and that's probably what Josh is talking about as well (I hope). The point about the bidding is that I do not know in advance what the result will be. I can guess but I don't know. Same with dice. I can guess, based on the rules, what result the dice will yield but I don't know for sure. With the dice I guess based on probability calculations, with the bidding I guess based on mindgames. Doesn't matter to me. Whether I would rather do mindgames or calculations is totally a matter of preference. The point is that I can only guestimate the outcome.

You have to consider that even with the dice it's not just "pick a number and hope it gets rolled". You have rules telling you which sides are going to be which result and those usually vary based on the situation you're in. Therefore you can just as easily get a feel for a dice roll as you can for a person. Depending on who you're playing with it may actually be harder to estimate the bidding of the other person (good pokerface, never met that guy before, can't get into his/her head,  etc) than it might be to judge the dice. People tend to be more sponteaous and most of all more complex than dice. When we're in a secret bid I never really know how much that other person is really invested in the situation, what their agenda is, what mood they're in, etc. Sure, I can guess, but usually it's not much more than that. It's usually pretty easy to judge your chances when you see the dice that are being rolled and the rules associated with that roll.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on that.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Ah! The root of our miscommunication surfaces!

Well, I'm certainly not looking at a mathematically precise term for randomness here. What I mean is "uncertainty" and that's probably what Josh is talking about as well (I hope).

... and there it is!

I'm talking about randomness from a mathematical standpoint. I started off using the term "fortune", which I thiiiink can apply to nonrandom processes , but it's really randomness I'm talking about, that I want to dissect.

Ah, the Provisional Glossary informs:

Fortune A method of resolution employing unpredictable non-behavioral elements, usually based on physical objects such as dice, cards, or similar. See also DFK and Resolution.

Bidding is interesting to me because it has uncertainty without randomness. It gets part of what die-rolling gets you, but with a different mechanic that has different features.

You have to consider that even with the dice it's not just "pick a number and hope it gets rolled". You have rules telling you which sides are going to be which result and those usually vary based on the situation you're in. Therefore you can just as easily get a feel for a dice roll as you can for a person. Depending on who you're playing with it may actually be harder to estimate the bidding of the other person (good pokerface, never met that guy before, can't get into his/her head,  etc) than it might be to judge the dice. People tend to be more sponteaous and most of all more complex than dice.

Well, right there is the crux of my curiousity.

People are much, much more predictable than dice. Rock/Paper/Scissors is a good indicator of that.

I was taking an Artificial Intelligence class in college and one of my classmates wrote a very simple program to play RPS with a human. After a random period of 4 or 5 games, it would increasingly win. She completely freaked out one of her dormmates, who thought the thing was reading her mind.

What I'm interested in here (this is gelling in my head as this thread goes on, and I thank everyone here for sticking with me while I hash it out) is how to get the uncertainty of dice without removing the human element and responsibility.

When we're in a secret bid I never really know how much that other person is really invested in the situation, what their agenda is, what mood they're in, etc. Sure, I can guess, but usually it's not much more than that.

... but it's based on millions of years of neurological evolution that helps us read faces. Seriously, there are vast and complex structures in the brain devoted to reading faces. We don't even recognize that we're doing it most of the time. It is profoundly nonrandom. Now, there are neurological phenomena that interfere with this (some of which are more common than is commonly thought) like Autism and Asberger's Syndrome, but I don't want to talk about that subset right now.

Now, what you're saying here, I think, is that you usually want a system with these features:
• It doesn't require the players to be fully responsible for the events in the game
• Events can "just happen" rathen than a player calculating an event
• Events take place that no one expected for the express purpose of stretching the imaginations of those involved into unexplored territory.

Near as I can tell, you want dice. Lest I've been unclear, I'll say it directly: Dice are cool! I have a lot of dice. I use them frequently. They have definite functions.

But I want to know what those functions are, and then figure out which ones come inherently from their randomness and which parts can come from other functions.

So when I write a game where I want these things:
• Players are completely responsible for the outcomes of conflicts.
• The challenges they encounter are determined without human input.

... then I want to use dice for the second spec but not the first.

I'd love to hear other benefits of Fortune mechanics, but it sounds like we may have tapped it out.

Emily, I'm still chewing on "randomness as inspiration." Sorry I haven't responded properly.

[Mudlock]

Hello,

A friend pointed me to this site recently, and I've been devouring it.  I've felt as if I'm a bit out of my depth here, but this thread absolutly grabed my interest.  Bear with my if I've misunderstood what you're grasping at here.

What I'm interested in here (this is gelling in my head as this thread goes on, and I thank everyone here for sticking with me while I hash it out) is how to get the uncertainty of dice without removing the human element and responsibility.

The outcome of a game of Chess is uncertain, even though the game is entirely deterministic (i.e. no random elements) and the entirety of the game-state information is avialable to both players at all times (i.e. no secrets).  Why is it uncertain?  Conceptually, Chess is the same game as TIc-Tac-Toe: two players, deterministic, no secrets.  But Tic-Tac-Toe (except to an eight year old) is uncertain.  How is that possible?

It's because Chess is big.  Chess, by its nature, is solvable, i.e. there exists an optimal way to play, just like in Tic-Tac-Toe, but the size of the game-space is so large that the way has not been found.  Therefore, each game of Chess is an exploration of the game-space, and the outcome will be determined by how intimate each player is with the terrain of that space and their best guess of where the one, true, path lies.

So if you want uncertainty without dice, one way to do it is by creating a solvable, but Large (with a capital L), problem and allowing independant agents to compete at finding solutions.  You could, infact, determine the outcome of all conflicts in your game by having the players play a game of Chess.  I'm not sure how well that would work though, in practice.

So "huge game-space" is one way to get uncertainty.  Secret knowledge (even if it's just "are they going to throw rock or paper?" but could be "do they know I'm conspiring to kill the king?") is another.  Randomness (dice) is a third, and from some perspectives, the only one where a player's familiarity with the system doesn't effect a character's success.  Which is probably why they're so commonly used in that role.

Is that anything like what you're getting at?

[contracycle]

Near as I can tell, you want dice. Lest I've been unclear, I'll say it directly: Dice are cool! I have a lot of dice. I use them frequently. They have definite functions.

But I want to know what those functions are, and then figure out which ones come inherently from their randomness and which parts can come from other functions.

What dice DO is impose the uncaring universe upon the best laid plans of mice and men.  Its not so much the uncertainty, as the externality of the decision that is significant.  It is quite wrong to characterise dice as being "scapegoats" IMO - that reverses the relationship.  When two people cannot agree, and resort to a random decision, then they have recognised their mutual and implacable opposition, and the fact that there is no negotiable settlement, and accept the decision of the gods as a means of circumventing the impasse.  The imposed externality of dice thus obviates certain conflicts that would otherwise prevent play from proceeding.

This is why I feel the Lumpley Principle is wrong to claim that all diced decisions are a mask for the social contract.  Dice are rather a special clause in the social contract as to how to resolve the unresolvable.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

What dice DO is impose the uncaring universe upon the best laid plans of mice and men.

Agreed! They have that effect.

But that effect doesn't exist in fiction. Everything that happens is the result of a decision. So I'm not sure — that's not rhetoric; I'm really not sure — what benefit they confer.

[quoteWhen two people cannot agree, and resort to a random decision, then they have recognised their mutual and implacable opposition, and the fact that there is no negotiable settlement, and accept the decision of the gods as a means of circumventing the impasse.  The imposed externality of dice thus obviates certain conflicts that would otherwise prevent play from proceeding.

This is why I feel the Lumpley Principle is wrong to claim that all diced decisions are a mask for the social contract.  Dice are rather a special clause in the social contract as to how to resolve the unresolvable.

You said yourself the key to why the LP is right about this: two people do not agree, they resort to a random decision, and they accept the results of the dice as direction. The important thing is their mutual acceptance. If they don't both accept it, at least grudgingly, it's just a number on a die.

[LordSmerf]

Josh,

I'm not so sure.  I mean, clearly the dice are doing something special, but ultimately they are some sort of selection system.  The dice can't generate new ideas, they can only choose between ideas provided in a social context.

Now, the question can validly arise: Does that make dice a cop-out of some sort?  That is, are dice an excuse not to make a choice between two elements?  I think that in some cases that may be so, but that if you are using Fortune in the Middle then the dice guide, but don't absolve you of responsibility.  In HeroQuest for example you can change the dice-arbitrated outcome of a "marginal defeat" for a "minor victory" if you expend a Hero Point.  There's still a choice there, will you spend the point?

Or is that not what you're getting at at all?

Thomas

[contracycle]

But that effect doesn't exist in fiction. Everything that happens is the result of a decision. So I'm not sure — that's not rhetoric; I'm really not sure — what benefit they confer.

Depends on what kind of fiction you read.  Frequently accidents of nature are used to justify story elements under the name of plot device - the other day I saw Pitch Black with opens with a ship being hit by a meteor shower.  No planned decision - it is the spur to subsequent decisions.  In written fiction, there is of course no real randomness, but we identify with the characters becuase we do understand what it is to be compelled to adrress random events.  RPG, and other games, uses literally what fiction uses only representatively.

You said yourself the key to why the LP is right about this: two people do not agree, they resort to a random decision, and they accept the results of the dice as direction. The important thing is their mutual acceptance. If they don't both accept it, at least grudgingly, it's just a number on a die.

Nope, it doesn't have to have any form of direction - the number can just be a number, like "d6 gold coins" on a pick pocket table.  As soon as the die stops rolling, the number enters the SIS literally.  Try walking away from a craps game because you didn't like the number you rolled and see how significant the PRIOR agreement to abide by the dice can be.

[Andrew Morris]

Nope, it doesn't have to have any form of direction - the number can just be a number, like "d6 gold coins" on a pick pocket table.  As soon as the die stops rolling, the number enters the SIS literally.  Try walking away from a craps game because you didn't like the number you rolled and see how significant the PRIOR agreement to abide by the dice can be.

I don't think that was the point. Sure, the dice came up with a number, and that number happens to be an actual number that's being accepted into the SIS, but that doesn't mean it's just a number on a die, with no effect on the SIS, which, I believe, was the concept Josh was putting forward.

There is still agreement, whether explicit or not, to abide by the outcome of the die roll. That's just as true for the "d6 coins" example as anything else. The players have agreed that the outcome of the dice will determine the number of coins in the SIS. The number on the dice represents something -- the number of dice in the SIS. It's not just a number on the table.

A better example of "just a number on a die" would be if we were playing D&D, and in the middle of a battle, I decide that I should kill d6 enemies in one round, and I roll my d6. Yeah, a five! I klled five enemies. What do you mean, no I didn't? In this case, there's no agreement, and the die roll has no effect on the SIS. It's just a number on die on the table.

Craps has nothing to do with SIS, the Lumpley Principle, or  RPGs at all. It's a totally different animal.

[Jason Lee]

Randomness also introduces an element of risk and temptation.  Why do you roll for Humanity in Sorcerer instead of just losing a point whenever you do something that warrants a roll?  Now, I hate to guess at what the reasons for certain design features are, but for me, it makes it more of a temptation.  If I knew I'd lose a point no matter what, I'd be much less likely to do it than now that I'm just risking it and could get away with it.

Quoted for truth.  The whole "fortune as a springboard for creativity" angle is pretty well and covered, so I'd like to expand on what Christian said instead.

Games and stories, and life I suppose,  are fundamentally about risk.  Any conscious choice is an assessment of risk versus consequence or reward - whether moving a piece in chess, the protagonist going to war, or deciding if you want to speed on your drive to work.  In a single-author story the risk is artificial.  Outcomes can give the illusion of uncertainty to the audience (when they don't we complain about the predictability of the story), but they were never uncertain to the author.  Role-playing can be the same basic process as sole authorship, but I think you are better off spending your time in a writer's group if that's what you're after.  One of the perks of role-playing is that you can also be an audience, so some level of uncertainly becomes important.   Uncertainly enables the audience to believe in the risk, which allows them to weigh the consequences and rewards, so they can understand the choices, and therefore engage in the theme.  A fortune mechanic is one way of creating that risk.

Problems can arise when you do not want risk but the mechanics provide it anyway, such as in events that might define a character without reflecting a choice (like suave Mr. Spyguy tripping on pickle at a cocktail party).  Hence, Fortune in the End is suck (for stories anyway).

[contracycle]

I don't think that was the point. Sure, the dice came up with a number, and that number happens to be an actual number that's being accepted into the SIS, but that doesn't mean it's just a number on a die, with no effect on the SIS, which, I believe, was the concept Josh was putting forward.

I'm not sure Josh was putting any proposition forward - he was asking what dice do.  IMo, the significance of dice is precisely that they are non-human.

The number on the dice represents something -- the number of dice in the SIS. It's not just a number on the table.

The numbers on the dice usually represent something.  However, they can be used literally.  There is no principled reason they cannot be read straight into the SIS as a literal value.  In fact, thinking about this over the weekend, I am quite struck by the fact that we use numbers-as-numbers so seldom.  None of this countradicts the general case that dice are almost always representative and therefore require interpretation and/or confirmation before anything enters the SIS.

A better example of "just a number on a die" would be if we were playing D&D, and in the middle of a battle, I decide that I should kill d6 enemies in one round, and I roll my d6. Yeah, a five! I klled five enemies. What do you mean, no I didn't? In this case, there's no agreement, and the die roll has no effect on the SIS. It's just a number on die on the table.

No thats a bad example.  If I have a rule from the book saying something like: "Ranger special ability: kill 1d6 orcs per turn", and then I roll a 5, then I have killed five orcs.  And if you or anyone were to attempt to overule that, it would require a special plea on your part to impose your chosen vision of what the SIS should be onto the tacit perception we all have simply by observing the roll. 

The example was bad because you inserted the condition "I decide".  Thats not relevant - I'm talking about rules systems external to human choice - the imposition of the impartial world.

Craps has nothing to do with SIS, the Lumpley Principle, or  RPGs at all. It's a totally different animal.

All games have a social contract, and gambling games have an especially important social contract, so important that violating it can bring upon your head the same sorts for penalties as violating the social contract of the state: death or serious injury.

[Andrew Morris]

I'm not sure Josh was putting any proposition forward - he was asking what dice do.  IMo, the significance of dice is precisely that they are non-human.

Fair enough. I'll put aside any thought as to what Josh meant, and let him explain his position.

The numbers on the dice usually represent something.  However, they can be used literally.  There is no principled reason they cannot be read straight into the SIS as a literal value.  In fact, thinking about this over the weekend, I am quite struck by the fact that we use numbers-as-numbers so seldom.  None of this countradicts the general case that dice are almost always representative and therefore require interpretation and/or confirmation before anything enters the SIS.

[...]

No thats a bad example.  If I have a rule from the book saying something like: "Ranger special ability: kill 1d6 orcs per turn", and then I roll a 5, then I have killed five orcs.  And if you or anyone were to attempt to overule that, it would require a special plea on your part to impose your chosen vision of what the SIS should be onto the tacit perception we all have simply by observing the roll.

[...]

The example was bad because you inserted the condition "I decide".  Thats not relevant - I'm talking about rules systems external to human choice - the imposition of the impartial world.

Total disagreement here. There is no possibility of reading anything straight into the SIS. Anything that becomes part of the SIS must be agreed upon by the human participants. Even if the example were needing a random number  in the SIS between one and 20 and rolling a d20 to determine it, it would still need to be filtered through the agreement of the participants. This could either be a decision made on the fly ("Sounds good to me.") or it could be in the written rules ("Look, it says right here on page 385 that you roll a d20 to get a random number between one and 20." "Oh, okay."). Everything that enters the SIS requires validation by the participants. There's always a choice, even if it's the choice to abide by the written rules.

All games have a social contract, and gambling games have an especially important social contract, so important that violating it can bring upon your head the same sorts for penalties as violating the social contract of the state: death or serious injury.

Again, while I respect your opinion, I simply don't agree with it. It's just a matter of whether you consider this relevantly similar or not. Also, debating the similarity of gambling games to RPGs is a bit off-topic. If you want to take it to a new thread, I'd be happy to discuss it.

[contracycle]

Total disagreement here. There is no possibility of reading anything straight into the SIS. Anything that becomes part of the SIS must be agreed upon by the human participants. Even if the example were needing a random number  in the SIS between one and 20 and rolling a d20 to determine it, it would still need to be filtered through the agreement of the participants. This could either be a decision made on the fly ("Sounds good to me.") or it could be in the written rules ("Look, it says right here on page 385 that you roll a d20 to get a random number between one and 20." "Oh, okay."). Everything that enters the SIS requires validation by the participants. There's always a choice, even if it's the choice to abide by the written rules.

You are asserting, not explaining.  WHY does the d20 require consent?  I saw it with my own eyes.  There is a point at which abstractions become counterproductive and this is it.  If I show you a photo and say "this is character X" then I do not also need to say to you "character X has blue eyes" - that is immediately visible to you.  Thata data point has indeed entered the SIS directly, from the picture, and only a subsequent change to this state would require anyone to exercise their consent.  I can show you a map, and bang, that data is in the Imaginary space just like that.

It is erroneous to think that everything that enters the SIS has to be mediated.  You cannot help but observe your environment.  The SIS does not cover, conceal, physical props.  Things can be read straight into the SIS through observation, it is merely this is not the bulk of RPG activity.  But, its a persistent enough issue that I have specific techniques to counter-act it: becuase memory is seldom persistent, my experience is that anothers players character description will steadily get more vague in my mind over time; therefore, as a GM, I call on each player to recount a description of their character to reinforce that image in the IS at each session.  A simple picture would be both more effective and more consistent.

Again, while I respect your opinion, I simply don't agree with it. It's just a matter of whether you consider this relevantly similar or not. Also, debating the similarity of gambling games to RPGs is a bit off-topic. If you want to take it to a new thread, I'd be happy to discuss it.

Thanks but no - I don't want to be accused of presenting any Big Ideas again.