Logarithmic Rolling Mechanics

[Hans]

Don't get me wrong, mate, I'm loving the math here, but I think I've gone as far as I can go.  It sounds to me that you understand exactly what your design goal is, and you understand the math behind what you want to see where you might take it.  Now its all a matter of making the aesthetic judgement as to what tradeoffs (complexity vs. simplicity, exactness vs. fudging) best achieve what you want.  I might push one way (I'll almost always push towards fudging/simplicity, for preference) but you might push another way, and its your game. 

I'd be happy to help out with any other directly math-related questions you come up with, because, hey, I'm loving the math.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Okay.  Again, thank you so much for everything so far!  I'm still thinking about the sqrt(2) case, but I won't bug you with that.

A while back, I posted an idea on simplifying my rules for movement.  I haven't really had any comments, whether criticism or suggestions.  Basically, I'm thinking of simplifying space by abstracting distances down to an integer DE, where the distance between two objects rounds to 2^(DE) m.  I'd appreciate any feedback you might have, if you're interested in looking at that.  Here's the URL:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=24418.0

-Jason T.

[Hans]

Ok, couldn't resist. 

According to the little Excel VB thing I wrote (code available on request), assuming:

* 0, 1, 10, and 15 are all on the die
* the two dice are identical.

then 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15 is the die that is the best fit with the cube root curve.  Specifically, it matches to a curve that has Difficulty 30 = 0.00654 probability of success.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Thanks for all your help, Hans!

Yes, I would be interested in seeing the code for that.  If it's small enough that Hotmail won't block it, you can get it to me at:

voiddragon@hotmail.com

My search, of course, always continues for an ideal rolling mechanic, and there is one other thing I'm trying out on my own right now, with little success.  It's basically the square root of 2 thing, on a one-half scale, dice are not identical, with one die consisting of only integers to reduce the adding of halves. 

We could end the conversation here, though.  Adding more precision to my rolling mechanic is actually a fairly minor issue compared to some of the other things I'm working on with this system.  I do, however, find it fun to experiment with, and hope eventually for something better than what I have now.

Thanks again.

-Jason T.