TROS Handicap

[Mike Holmes]

For example, I don't want to face Brian unless he's got a character with at least... 4 CP less than I have.

I was thinking. We could all rate ourselves in terms of how we think we rate to the best player. That's gotta be Jake. So Jake is the pacesetter. This rating can be your TROS Handicap.

I'd call it even odds if I was fighting Jake with 5 more CP in my pool (all else being equal), for example. So I have a five handicap. Basically I'm none too good (I focus on playing my role more in RPGs). :-)

Everyone rate yourself! If you've played against Jake, rate yourself against him. If you've played with someone who's already rated themselves, or have a good sense of how you'd do, then rate yourself against that. These will be guesses, but then that's OK, this is just to get a feel.

Of course, the only way to really test this out is to actually duel. So, if you get a chance, test it out. And then, as you improve, you can keep track of your handicap. That way, if you ever get into a game, you can tell people your handicap, and they can adjust difficulty accordingly.

So, what's your TROS Handicap?

BTW, if someone else actually thinks that they're better than Jake, let's hear it. If it can be proved, then we may all have to adjust our handicaps down one to put you at the top. If you're as good as Jake that makes you a "scratch" TROS player.

Mike

[Brian Leybourne]

Tricky one.

I've never duelled Jake, but it's a safe bet he's better than me :-) . On the other hand, I've played TROS a lot, and writing the Combat Sim meant becoming very familiar with TROS combat and all it's nuances, so I flatter myself perhaps but I think I'm probably fairly strong in a TROS fight.

So if we're talking handicap as steps removed from Jake, I would rate myself a handicap of 1 or maybe 1.5 at the most.

Brian.

Edit: Which seems to work out well, Mike, since you rated yourself as 5 behind Jake or 4 behind me :-).

[Ashren Va'Hale]

Actually, I had the opportunity to run a game with jake as a player. That was really funny since (and jake will kill me for saying this most likely) one of my more anal players was constantly correcting jake about the rules.
"What, do you think you wrote the game or something?!" he would say to jake prior to correcting him. Jake's excuse was better though, "Hey, I wrote the book so I wouldn't have to remember!"

Point being that although he is the author I would say he made the game easy enough to understand and learn that it is easy enough to reach his level of skill in playing TROS.

As for actual WMA, yeah, I need a nice handicap against jake. Once we sparred for 3 out of five hits and I barely got the three and only because he was using Cut and thrust (with buckler) which he doesn't always use while I had the only thing I knew- long sword. Had he been using long sword or Quarter staff I would have been pulling weapon padding from my nose for a week.

Wow that was a lot of text for a small point. Sorry guys.

[Fallen_Icarus]

Speaking from a completely "I dont know any of you guys personally" perspective, and yet having Seneschaled TROS till I I was blue in the face, I would have to guess that I am at a good 7 or 8 CP handicap.

I have yet to be truly beaten in a fight in which I wasn't pulling punches.  This is hard question to answer for Seneschals however for the very reason that pulling punches, i.e. choosing somewhat "weaker" maneuvers against a PC, is part and parcel of a good game.  Building tension without character death.

However, I digress.  Overall, mono y mono, I'd go with a 7 CP handicap.  Though that probably still wouldn't save my ass.

EVH

[Bankuei]

I'd give myself a 4 dice handicap(since I don't know what SA's are all involved), but if we're fighting anywhere where there is terrain or stuff that can be used in a fight, I'm a 3 dice handicapper(since I've killed characters with a door, fercrissakes!).

Chris

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I honestly think that as far as TROS goes, skill at playing comes from 1: Knowing the rules (Maneuvers etc)
2: Knowing the Character you are playing
3: Know the character you are fighting (sometimes only possible from skills like style analysis)
4:Knowing the setting you are fighting in
5: and most of all knowing how to assimilate that information into an appropriate strategic and tactical plan for the fight.

If you can manage those things then you can win with severe disadvantags cp wise.
EX: I had a guy who was poorly equiped and armored fighting a much more powerful foe but through use of terrain (higher ground) stances, choice of targets (zones 4 and 6 on a guy in plate w/ pot helm)and good maneuvers (half swording once inside range, beating the shield, use of body language, feints) the guy with a 4 CP disadvantage won, and with minimal use of SA's (mainly they only turned a level 5 wound into a level 15 for dramatic effect).

In other words my point is that CP advantage is NOT the end of the story.

[Mayhem1979]

Very true...  I hate fighting Ashren's characters pretty much no matter what... because he plays SMART (and the fact that he has uncanny luck with die roles don't help none).

As long as you play things right, you can overcome nearly any reasonable CP disadvantage.

[Mike Holmes]

All true guys. We all know that you can overcome a CP disadvantage. But you're missing the spirit of the thread.

Which is, all else being equal, how much more CP do you think that you'd need to beat Jake half the time. That is, you each get an identical character, on a "level" playing field (that is, neither participant has an advantage over the other in terms of terrain). How much CP would you need Jake to spot you to beat him 5 out of ten tries?

Or is there a better way to determine handicap? I mean CP seems to be the benchmark. I mean we could talk in terms of stronger characters or faster characters, but CP is the currency of combat. So it seems the right thing to rate by.

EVH, I bet you're better than that. A five CP disadvantage is hard to overcome; I doubt there are experienced GMs with less ability than I have. OTOH, maybe I'm more like a 7 handicap myself.

I totally buy that Brian is a 1, however. Very good, but not quite Jake's level.

As for Jake's lousy knowledge of the rules, I can sympathize. I always have to look stuff up for Universalis (acutally I also usually just guess). But I don't think that means that he isn't good with them in play or that he cheats. He's plenty good.

Mayhem, all that means is that you're a CP or two higher in Handicap than Ashren. So if he'd rate himself, then we could get your rating....

I really thought people would think this was fun.

BTW, there is a practical aspect. I was thinking of running a tournament at GenCon (and/or Origins), so this could be scientifically tested. And accurate results would be of great value.

Mike

[Ashren Va'Hale]

it is fun, I was just trying to beat around the bush really since you guys will call me foolish, but honestly, I would rate my self, relative to jake, at a -2 in TROS. In other words I think I could beat him with a smaller combat pool. Why you ask? Well, having played with jake before I know how bad his luck is roling dice. (Which is why it is so fun having him roll for the badguys.)

Now, if you count luck as being equal, I would say Id be at least  scratch.

[Mike Holmes]

Cool. Despite having bad luck with dice myself, I don't believe in luck. Can't, I'm a statistician by trade. :-)

So, our first scratch player. Excellent. Going to be at GenCon? :-)

So, that put's Mayhem at what a 1 or so? Given that he attributes your wins somewhat to your luck?

Who else? Lance? Irmo? Bob?

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

I've only dueled Rattlehead regularly. I've dueled Bob Richter once, and Draigh a time or two. I attribute my losses mostly to a weapon/armor set-up which isn't conducive to dueling.

So until I can get some "degrees of Jake Norwood" I can't really rate myself.

[Fallen_Icarus]

Give me 15 MP a long bow and a successful camo roll and I'll woop all ya.
:)

EVH

[Fallen_Icarus]

BTW

Brian, have you thought about programing a version of the combat sim that autoplays one of the combatants?  Dont get me wrong, I dont think theres anything wrong with the way it is now, I just think it would be a blast be able to plug in a character created by someone else (Jake?) and duel without having to worry about keeping it even and fair on your opponents side.

Not that that would give an accurate assesment of a players skill, but still...

EVH

[Brian Leybourne]

Brian, have you thought about programing a version of the combat sim that autoplays one of the combatants?  Dont get me wrong, I dont think theres anything wrong with the way it is now, I just think it would be a blast be able to plug in a character created by someone else (Jake?) and duel without having to worry about keeping it even and fair on your opponents side.

I started designing the algorithm for an AI opponent in the combat sim, but gave up when I got to 20 pages with 12 exit points to spread out from. It's quite honestly a lot easier to design a chess AI, there's just so many variables and conditions and possibilities in TROS.

So for the time being, don't hold your breath.

Brian.

[Ashren Va'Hale]

Now heres where you make this really interesting, instead of making things simply "Equal", you start each player out with the same priorities and say make a character to duel the otehr player. Including use of money and so forth (Id say high freeman 50 gold imp standard), thus all levels of strategy are involved. This would really involve each player's entire TROS playing skill and intelligence etc.

On those conditions I would be much more inclined to give jake an advantage over me as I GM more than play these days.