Math in games: why the stigma?

[Jaif]

I want add a few more items: I'll try to use some quotes as a springboard:

With that in mind I try to design simpler in terms of math and everything else.

I dispute this; "everything else", specifically.  Ok, I don't really know you from Adam, so for all I know you do simplify *everything*.  However, RPGs typically are heavy on the Verbal, light on the Math.  Game designers do not write down to their audience nearly as much as they dumb down the math.  If you pulled all the RPGs off the shelf of your local store, you would see (thumb to the wind) that most are written to the high school/college level, while the math is at worst to the middle school level (simple algebra), and mostly elementary school arithmetic.

Hence I prefer systems with fewer mathematical steps and references so that I can see a character as someone "strong" rather than someone with STR 18/57, etc.

Really?  So a monster manual where creatures are labled "strong" "average", or "weak" is more descriptive than one that uses a range of numbers from 1-1000?  The mathematical approach is going to convey far more information with far few symbols in this case.

The point is that math is in part a language as well, and has strong descriptive power too.  Saying English is more descriptive than math is a crappy comparison: it's a matter of situation.

The key issue is search time + handling time. That's it.

I thought about this statement some more, and now I completely disagree with it.  Time may be, but does not have to be the key issue.

For example, assume two people who enjoy combat in their gaming.  One plays Warhammer, the other plays an Amber game where they are granted large leeway in descibing their battles.

a) WH: The gm says "make your roll." The player rolls d100 and a d6; comparing the d100 to their weapon skill, they find they hit; adding 4 (or whatever) to the d6 they find they did 8 points of damage.  Done.

b) Amber: The gm says "after a few passes, you find that your opponent's skill is dwarfed by your own...describe what happens." The player, who likes combat and wants to describe the scene in Zelazny-esqe fashion, sits back and rattles off a paragraph describing the moves and blows until he lands a square hit.

(a) takes a few seconds...ok, call it 10.  (b) takes a minute or two, depending on how quickly the player can get the image in his head, how eloquent he is, and how much detail he wishes to go into.

It's not the time.  People will spend tons of time resolving situations if they like those situations.



The bottom line is that Verbal skills are favored over Math skills in RPGs.  Players are generally expected to display greater verbal skills than math skills.


Oh, one more item:

Jeff, I think that you're caricaturing Forge discussions. No argument like "too much math" would be acceptable here - that's an unsupported value judgment.

Ok, I said I noticed a stigma; I wasn't knocking the forge.  However...please, get real.  I'm sure I can...hell, let's do a quick search:

From this thread: http://209.68.22.156/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2117&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=math&start=15

That way equating improvised moves to a certain game effect to a certain difficulty (does it need a +3 or a +6 or a +9) becomes a simple excersize that doesn't require tables or alot of math.

I leave it as an exercise to others to search for the word math and find all the situations where someone says something about "simplifying the math" or "if you don't mind the math".  It's a trend in most forums (fora? I'm not a Latin guy) covering RPG games.

-Jeff

[Ron Edwards]

H'm!

Interesting case all around, Jeff. Since I agree with you 100% about math being a language, I think your points deserve serious consideration.

The topic is related, I think, to the concurrent thread and the concept that all role-playing is related to narration, eventually - the statement of what happens. "System," in my definition, is whatever routines or negotiations are employed to get to that narration-point.

OK, so in that case, we look at all the different ways to get there, and we find long ones and short ones. Note that I consider most Drama-based systems long ones, because often they require intensive verbal negotiation (Amber is an excellent example, as its Karma system is heavily modified by Drama).

This is an important point - I am not claiming that "math is automatically shorter than words." I am suggesting that the translation from math-to-English is going to be a time-usage step, one of many possible time-usage steps across the whole range of resolution systems, math-heavy or not math-heavy.

Therefore, maybe my search/handling times point can be re-stated differently, as an argument in favor of elegance - whatever steps are employed in the resolution, they should be (a) focused relative to the goals of play, and (b) non-redundant and non-contradictory. This should be the case whether math is employed or not.

Hence Amber is flawed, in my experience of play, by non-elegant non-mathematical rules for using Drama to modify the Karma resolution system. Similarly, Champions is similarly flawed by non-elegant mathematical rules for using skill levels to modify the Fortune resolution system.

I offer Sorcerer and Hero Wars as more elegant mathematical systems - there's nothing "oh just make it up" or "rules light" about either of them - as well as Otherkind, The Dying Earth, and Paladin as more elegant low-to-no-math systems.

Best,
Ron

[xiombarg]

I have to agree with Ron, here. It's a matter of elegance. The problem is the sort of shorthand people get into. When they say "this system has too much math" they really mean "it's mathematical systems are too awkward".

This can be true of non-mathematical systems, too. Especially when all they're doing is trying, and failing, to hide the math. FUDGE comes to mind.

Now, the problems mentioned so far may be conflated with, and influenced by, being bad at math. Myself, I grasp abstract math easily but tend to screw up basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication. This means that a mathematical system needs to be extra-elegant to catch my attention as "cool".

Also, frankly, you'll dealing with a stigma here that exists outside of RPGs. How often to you hear the term "number cruncher" used positively rather than negatively, especially when referring to a person? Tackle the dislike of math in our society and you'll see less of it in gaming.

[Paganini]

I think there's a much simpler explanation for this situation. Time one spends doing math is time one spends *not* doing other things. It's that simple. If you enjoy doing math - especially if one of your gaming goals is to construct a statistical model of some reality or other - then, woohoo, math is great!

My personal philosophy, though, is the less math the better. In school I enjoyed math for math's sake. But my goals when gaming don't have much to do with statisticaly modeling anything. I have specific purposes in mind for the system, and if the system has a greater number of (or more complex) mathematical operations than I think is called for to get the job done, then that system has Too Much Math. Prime example: SORD. I read SORD a couple of times. I thought "For a game with a name like System of Role Development, what is the point of all this?!"

I think the goals of gamers you see on RPG.net are someplace in between these extremes. They desire a certain amount of statistical faithfullness, but they don't want the statistics to become the *focus* of the game. It occurs to me that such games (like SORD) could be games designed to facilitate Exploration of System.

[Gordon C. Landis]

Jeff,

Ron passed it by, but one glitch I see in your WH/Amber example is that you are talking about time, not handling time.  If the Warhammer example takes 10 seconds, the Amber example takes 2 - to "figure out" what's going to happen.  The WH player (and/or GM) could take the same paragraph of description to narrate what 8 points means that the Amber player takes to describe his victory.  Handling time (as I understand it) refers to how long it takes to know the outcome, not how long it takes it describe it.

That said, I'm in favor of de-stigmatizing math.  The system I'm currently designing has some pretty basic math involved in tracking progress towards and away from a goal during play, but I anticipate some people will be turned off by a notion like "You need 20 points to acheive your goal.  You get 10 on this roll - narrate 10 points worth of progress towards your goal."  I'm attempting to mitigate this by using tokens (poker chips) so those that don't like the math have something concrete to work with.  But the fact that I'm thinking this way reinforces (I think) that there's *some* basic truth to your notion.

Gordon

[Walt Freitag]

Elegance.

Math is an abstraction; words are an abstraction; tables are an abstraction. It's all about, what's the right kind of abstraction?

Elegance is bottomless (that is, deeper than it's possible to analyze rationally) but some aspects of it are straightforward.

Some things are just math-y. Of course you'd use a math-based abstraction to decide whether your spaceship can intercept the enemy spaceship. It sounds like a math problem right from the start. If you were really there, your ship's computer or your brainy science officer would be apprising you of the situation by doing math.

Some things aren't. Doing calculations to decide the odds for whether your hired assistants remain loyal is just an inelegant abstraction. Especially if the math comes after a bunch of judgment calls -- "Let's see, the table says -15% if they've been under unusually stressful conditions, does this apply currently?" -- that apply to the situation better than the math does. Drama resolution makes more sense here, because it amounts to using negotiating with a person (e.g. the GM) as an abstraction for negotiating with a character.

One thrown die can be a better representation of one blow in combat than three thrown dice added up (and it's not because of the adding). A roll of a pool of dice better represents a flurry of exchanges in a combat than a single die roll with the same probability distribution. For a pursuit, the same pool can work better thrown one at a time even if that has no direct effect on the result. Dice of different shapes can be more or less appropriate even if the probabilities work out the same. A pile of poker chips can mean things that a number cannot. And vice versa.

There's a whole side of simulation that's all about symbolism, that has nothing to do with realism or verisimilitude, efficiency or simplicity, important as those things are.

In my first LARP, hand to hand fighting was a Karma mechanism. Everybody had a numerical fighting strength. Higher number wins. It was a test, a comparison; there are people you're better than, and people better than you. But gunfire was different. You shot someone by sticking a red adhesive dot on the person, at the spot you wanted to hit them. It meant guns had zero range and never missed. Not very realistic. But a very successful mechanism. Shooting someone was a fast, simple, brutal act. Players who got shot would have the same blank look of shock as characters getting shot in movies. (Don't know if that's realistic, never seen people getting shot in real life, but it sure was cinematic.) Elegant, if I do say so myself.

Movement is mathy. Time is mathy. Cost, when the transaction is voluntary, is mathy. Brute force is mathy. Risk is mathy, which is why there are "calculated" risks even when nobody is doing the calculations. Mathematical abstractions fit right in with these.

Emotions aren't mathy. Perception isn't mathy. Problem-solving isn't mathy, even if it's solving math problems. Language isn't mathy. Negotiation isn't mathy. Pain isn't mathy. Look for other abstractions for these.

- Walt

[Lance D. Allen]

I'm not sure I'll be able to say this any better than anyone else here, but I'm going to give it a try..

Most of the time, roleplaying games are about getting somewhere in the story, getting into character, or telling a good story. These are all verbal-based things. Which would lead me to say that roleplaying is a very VERBALLY-based hobby. We want to use the language that we are most familiar with (for most of us here on the Forge, I assume that this is english, whether the British variety, or the American) because it works best for telling a story.

The numbers act as a sort of delimiter on what we can do with our creativity, for the most part. They act as the physics of the world that we are playing in. For that purpose, I think numbers and math are good... but for any purpose beyond that, I think they get in the way of the point.

In Mage Blade, most actions require 1, maybe two rolls. To determine the effects of that roll, you must first add two numbers, add or subtract any applicable modifiers, then compare the dieroll to the resulting number to determine success or failure and extent of success or failure. I, personally, consider this to be a very simplistic system. For combat, there'll be a little more to be done, but you get the point, I'm sure.

On the other hand, item creation might fall into "too complicated" or "too much math". Item creation requires not 1 roll like described above, but 4-5 rolls, all like the above, plus keeping track of the sum of the results, and possible rerolls if the result on a particular roll wasn't satisfactory to the player. The final number is used to determine the quality of the item created, at which point, various bonuses or penalties are applied to the item. Complicated? Perhaps, but every player I've shown this to so far has really liked it, and when compared to what texts I can find on, say, blacksmithy/swordsmithy, it seems to make a lot of sense.

I suppose even some amount of your play goals (ala GNS) can factor, in some amount, into whether math = good or math = bad to your particular group. Honestly, though, I'm not going to try to explore this, because I'll probably get it wrong.. What I will say is that I like using certain amounts of math because it simulates physics in a consistent (even if not 100% realistic) manner, and consistency is, I feel, important to a game system.

[Blake Hutchins]

Jeff,

I feel constrained to point out that I never said "no math," but that I prefer to conceive of a character with words rather than numbers.  I do not make any facetious argument that words convey more precise quantitative information than numbers, or that numbers should not be used.  Numbers are fine, numbers are good, but I prefer to give them a lower profile where possible.  I point to FUDGE and Castle Falkenstein as examples.  By no means number-free or perfect systems, these do attempt to describe characters in primarily non-mathematical ways.  Further, as a GM, I don't need a boatload of granularity to make my games fly.  Everway works just fine for me with a diceless system and a simple scale for its numbers.

All that said, in general, yeah, a "Strong" Dragon works the same as a "STR 22 Dragon" for my purposes.  I'm a writer; I don't need to break things out in numeric terms to the Nth degree, nor do I particularly enjoy doing so.  Some people do enjoy this level of detail, and boo-yah to them, I say.  To each his own.  Yay team.

It's a matter of taste.  Some people prefer seventeen steps to calculate an outcome, God knows why.  I prefer one step, not because I dislike number crunching in and of itself, but because I'd rather get on with what to me is the meat of the game: the narrative (used in a non-GNS sense here).  I don't play for the purpose of playing with numbers, and I have been in games where repetitive calculations, though not difficult, become damn tedious, turning the game into the roleplaying equivalent of balancing my checking account.

Consequently, when I look at a system, I look at how many steps I'll have to take, how much intermediary calculation is required, and whether the coolness factor of those additional steps and calculations add enough appeal to overcome my desire to roll and get on with it.  With few exceptions (Tribe 8 comes to mind, perhaps The Riddle of Steel), I'd almost always go with more streamlined systems.  Ah, Jesus, the heresy...!  It burns...  It burns...!

OK, so other folks may feel they need lots of granular steps, random hit locations, weapon damage reckoned to the second decimal point, including the quantified impact of windage, buck fever, and other mathematical contortionism to feel they've reached an sufficiently detailed and thus "genuine" outcome.  In my opinion, some of these people use labyrinthine quantification as a substitute for imagination, but that's just my take on it.

[/mini rant]  You can resume normal programming now.

Best,

Blake

[Jaif]

Ron passed it by, but one glitch I see in your WH/Amber example is that you are talking about time, not handling time. If the Warhammer example takes 10 seconds, the Amber example takes 2 - to "figure out" what's going to happen. The WH player (and/or GM) could take the same paragraph of description to narrate what 8 points means that the Amber player takes to describe his victory. Handling time (as I understand it) refers to how long it takes to know the outcome, not how long it takes it describe it.

Actually, I picked Amber for a reason.  It specifically states that important combats should be handled in detail with combat-oriented players at important times. In such situations, the rules are clear that great efforts should be taken to describe the situation. The surroundings are fair game, and participants are encouraged to make the combat something more than a comparison between two numbers.

Describing combat is an inherant part of the Amber system, and an important Amber combat can take just as long as any math-heavy game.

Seriously, the Amber combat section is pretty nothing but a primer on how to adequately describe combat.

-Jeff

[Gordon C. Landis]

Seriously, the Amber combat section is pretty nothing but a primer on how to adequately describe combat.

And I, knowing nothing about Amber-the-game, will now shut the fuck up.

Gordon

BTW- The Amber thing is weird.  I've tracked down and bought all kinds of odd RPGs just to see what they're like, but Amber . . . I've help it in my hands, and couldn't bring myself to buy it.

Brain #1 - "Diceless?  Zelazny as a GAME?  Er, I don't think - "

Brain #2 - "Aw, come on - it'll be good for ya, broaden your perspective.  Or think of it as historical research.  Come on, buy it!"

I couldn't.  Brain #1 wins.

[Evan Waters]

All that said, in general, yeah, a "Strong" Dragon works the same as a "STR 22 Dragon" for my purposes.

Just hypothetically, though- suppose you need to know which is stronger, the Strong Dragon or the Strong Giant?

This I think is where numbers come in. Two characters who possess the same quality may not possess it to the same degree, and to reflect that you need a language where meanings are precise, not overlapping. A game need not be number-heavy to convey these nuances, but it would be hard for a totally numberless game to avoid binary distinction, where you're either Strong or Weak, or possibly Averagely Built.

[Blake Hutchins]

Depends on circumstances.  As long as we're looking at a hypothetical word-based game, with a hypothetical conflict between a Strong Dragon and a Strong Giant, I'd probably look at other descriptors with an eye toward their enhancing one another.  If the Dragon's size is Massive, that quality could well augment Strong to provide the advantage.  If I'm not as worried about size, other possible augmenters could be Talons, Armor, or even Draconic Cunning.  The Giant would have her own modifiers, like Big Club, Huge Gut, and the like.

There are other ways to apply some kind of variance, such as specialties within a quality that provides augmentation.  Could even have qualities an opponent (assuming Dragon and Giant are played by separate individuals) could activate as hindrances, e.g., Weak Spot in Scaly Armor, Poor Eyesight, and the like.  Tactics, injury, or external factors could equally well augment or hinder.

If I were the GM bringing the two characters into conflict, I could also simply use Drama to resolve things.

Does that answer your question, Evan?

Best,

Blake

[Le Joueur]

And to add to Laurel and Blake's comments, I think part of this problem is that most games simply say 'this is how you resolve everything' and expect the group to know when to invoke the rules and when to 'skip the mechanics.'  I know this is often 'left up to individual style,' but somehow I think that it causes more problems than it 'broadens the audience.'

By this you mean to say that people roll too much? Because it's not well specified in many games? And that makes the math more tedious? Am I following you?

Not only "too much," but also 'too little.'  I have been bothered by games that don't even say 'how to know when dice are appropriate,' not even in their examples.  The only specifications carry the implication that dice should come out every time a character uses an ability; in practice, I always see players 'get the hang of it' without any text-based supervision or they just give up and go back to something familiar.

That math isn't tedious, it's dangerous.  Invoking chance that many times significantly raises the 'whiff factor' sensation.  The reason the maths are important here is because the 'actual probability' seldom matches the success rates of real-world examples at that frequency.  How far 'off' reflects an implied frequency of usage; lacking the textual description can thus cause problems.

Not that this has anything to do with math stigma any more, but could explain the reason people think they have so many examples but, under close scrutiny, these fall apart.  (Once bitten, twice shy; what do we blame?  Math.)

Fang Langford

[Mike Holmes]

With that in mind I try to design simpler in terms of math and everything else.

I dispute this; "everything else", specifically.  Ok, I don't really know you from Adam, so for all I know you do simplify *everything*.  However, RPGs typically are heavy on the Verbal, light on the Math.  Game designers do not write down to their audience nearly as much as they dumb down the math.  If you pulled all the RPGs off the shelf of your local store, you would see (thumb to the wind) that most are written to the high school/college level, while the math is at worst to the middle school level (simple algebra), and mostly elementary school arithmetic.

Since this was addressed to me... First I'm not sure what this has to do with the math or even the elegance debate, but you asked. And I'll take it as an opportunity to extend my remarks.

When I said I simplify everything, I meant the mechanics. Some mechanics are not math related, and I attempt to simplify those as well. For example, I recently found that I had developed two differing mechanics to deal with two similar sorts of circumstances. On examining it, I found that by modifying one slightly and using just that for both situations, I could handle both types of situations with but one mechanic. Simpler. But I didn't lose anything, so, more importantly, more elegant.

The advantages to simplicity are many. Less mistakes, less learning, less referencing, less in general of what people do not want in RPGs. And if it makes math simpler so that the math-dislikers out there are less bugged, then why not? Again, this is all under the assumption that I lose nothing by the simplifications. Or more specifically that the ratio between profit and pain is higher after the simplification than before it. This is what elegance is all about.

As far as writing style, mine is probably attrociously overwrought and technical. I do not dumb it down, no, but I do attempt to be clear. I would like to be elegant in my writing, but I'm afraid that I just might not have the skill to be so. In any case, presentation of mechanics and the actual complexity of their use in a game are two totally unrelated things. One can fairly safely assume that when reading the rules to a game that a GM or player will have as much time as they need to absorb it. Unlike during play where you are looking to eliminate anything that distracts from the fun of play.

This last point relates to the whole search/handling time thing. The question with these is how much time do you spend doing the stuff that is distracting/distastefull in getting to your presumtive goal of narration of play. So, in Amber, the part where you describe is supposed to be more narrative in nature, and thus will be considered by some to not be handling time.

As it happens I actually like referencing Rolemaster charts and such (remember that work issue), so I don't mind what most refer to as a long search/handling time. But others find that part unappealing and distracting from what they consider to be the main point of play. Thus to them, the part where they are looking things up and rolling and adding,etc, is something to be avoided. Thus they say that those things are search/handling times, and that they like relatively low ones. But again it really comes down to the ratio again. Is what you get for the complexity worth the pain.

And this, of course, is why there is no ultimate answer to the question of what makes for the best ratio. It's different for each individual. However, this is where elegance can be useful again. If you can lower the pain part, without lowering the pleasure part, you can almost certainly be assured of having done something that improves the game.

Oh, and I am not all Game Designers, so I'm not sure how what they do has any bearing on what I do. Perhaps they do cater to a particular bias. That's called marketing. As one poster said, however, it's unlikely that we'll solve that bias locally, as it seems to be a personal preference, and not specifically aimed at RPGs.

But you certainly have my blessings if you can pull it off. I would love to not worry about the math complexity of my games as much as I do. I'm fond of math, and like it in my games. I just realize that not everyone is like me, and adjust accordingly.

Mike

[Jaif]

Ok, a few items.

1) Let's assume that everthing written is crystal clear.   It's dumb, but I'm really just saying that clarity and difficulty can be two seperate things.

2) An english sentance can be difficult, say by virture of using less-common words.  However, if you understand the words, the sentance is clear.

3) A math equation can be difficult, say by virture of using harder-to-perform calculations (eg, logarithm).  However, it's still clear if you understand the calculations used.

4) Game designers will often seek to simplify the math.  It's pretty much a theme.

5) Game designers will generally not seek to simplify the language.

I'll say this in an entirely different way: game designers have little sympathy for people who lack the verbal skills to follow their work.  They have great sympathy for those who lack the math.

-Jeff