Yello, :)

I would like to add some points in favor of the opposed/unopposed dichotomy (sp?):

Myth #1: Opposed die rolls have no more information than unopposed ones
Take an average able-bodied dude out of the general population and have him run the 100m dash 30 times in 30 different occasions. Check out the distribution on the times. Now, take a world class runner and do the same. Now, put the two together in a two-dude relay. Do you really expect to have a similar distribution? My point: whether in opposition or in conjunction, multiple sources of randomness should have distributions differing from that of a single source.

Myth #2: Opposed rolls should be less predictable than unopposed ones
Take two dudes and pit them against each other in the aforementioned 100m dash. Possible outcomes: win, loose or draw. Actually nowadays, it's win or loose, as photo-finish usually takes care of the draw. Now, take just one of them. What are the posisble results? Any one from 9 secs to unfinished. However, let's say we are interested in the actual times obtained by both dudes. We now have a two-dimensional distribution, which is inherently less predictable than a one-dimensional one. My point: if all you care about is who wins, opposed contests should be more predictable.

Myth #3: If you must have opposed rolls, everything should be abstracted to an opposed roll
Let's take that 100m dash again. Can we call the track the opposer and roll for it? Sure. We can. If we rate simplicity several orders of magnitude higher than realism. The truth is, the track is just there. It is not a source of randomness. My point: other things being equal, the number of rolls should exactly equal the number of active participants, i.e., the number of sources of fortune.

Of course, the above is not an end-all-be-all of... well, of anything. I have nothing against people who pursue consistency for consistency's sake (and in fact I myself am undecided on that point). However, I felt that the opposed/unopposed distinction was getting the short end of the stick and I decided to speak up. :)

Comments, however thermal, welcome, as usual. :)

Cheers,

J.

This has me wondering why virtually all opposed rolls in RPGs are represented as dialectical. Surely there are cases when more than one thing is acting on another (as when things are interacting on each other or more than two things are involved), yet those kind of situations are most often solved with complexities of modifiers of various types, all of which are static in nature.

Some games, I imagine (none come to mind at the moment), probably use modifying dice to represent how much a factor influences the event, but this is still basically a modifier to the main roll and not a roll for the inflence itself.

Shouldn't there be a way to roll for a three or four-way conflict all at once, without having to break everything down into dualistic battles? Can't we roll for the runner, the track, the weather conditions, the will of the gods, and the runner's old injuries (which might act up), all in a single system of resolution? Couldn't the weather be the overall winner of such a conflict? Wouldn't that be an interesting outcome to narrate?

Just some thoughts.

Later.
Jonathan

May I add...

Myth #4: Role-playing games are best served by modelling reality at every turn.

The reasons should be obvious...

Dang Langford

p. s. And if the difference between reality and a game isn't obvious, send me a Private Message and I'd be happy to explain with links to relevant discussions.

Hello, :)

Le Joueur wrote: Myth #4: Role-playing games are best served by modelling reality at every turn.

The reasons should be obvious...

Le Joueur also wrote: Myth #4: Role-playing games are best served by modelling reality <...>
p. s. And if the difference between reality and a game isn't obvious

Hey J.,

JMendes wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: Myth #4: Role-playing games are best served by modeling reality at every turn.

The reasons should be obvious...

Hmmm... Ok, I'll bite. Please endeavor to explain myth #4 to a Simulationist without insulting him.

Maybe it's just me, but I think that at the heart of the matter lies not how you roll the dice, but how random it is. The fact is that most systems have one or two models of randomness and then violate almost any situation by imposing that model on everything.

Bell curves are very nice and well, but I rarely see anyone thinking about the effect of the standard deviation of the distribution.

If skills range from 1 to 10 and there is a 10% chance I'll either perform at +5 or more or -5 or less of my average level of success, then that's gonna be a whole lot different in feel from if the numbers would have been +2 and -2. The opposed/non-opposed thing is only really about introducing slightly different distributions, but in general those changes aren't very drastical.

Because we're all friggin weaned on having randomness being as important or even more important than skills and the like. The most simulationist games with millions of modifiers can suddenly in a massacre of irrationalism introduce a random factor which outweighs the impact of any of the modifiers mentioned.

In most rpg worlds it's surprising that people even survive at the rate they are supposed to fumble or make mistakes.

Why does armwrestling yield the same distribution as playing cards? Why is the time it takes for me to cook eggs for breakfast and the time it takes to debug a program equally uncertain in most games?

I don't care what damn mechanic you use, just give me a world I can depend upon, not one that would break down in minutes if it followed the same laws that apply to the characters.

In real life, some things are more predictable than others. Is really having that in a role playing game so much to ask?

(Incidentally you can use the same randomness scale if you make sure that the effect of low and high results depend on the randomness of the situation. So a bad result on cooking eggs might add a minute, whereas a bad result for debugging might add a few weeks)

Fang Langford wrote: In fact, in normal life, does one even think in percentages? In predictability? In repeatability? Or do they 'just do it?'

Pale Fire wrote: In most rpg worlds it's surprising that people even survive at the rate they are supposed to fumble or make mistakes.

Jonathan Walton wrote: Shouldn't there be a way to roll for a three or four-way conflict all at once, without having to break everything down into dualistic battles? Can't we roll for the runner, the track, the weather conditions, the will of the gods, and the runner's old injuries (which might act up), all in a single system of resolution? Couldn't the weather be the overall winner of such a conflict? Wouldn't that be an interesting outcome to narrate?

Andrew Martin wrote: Every combat round, around 5 per 100 archers broke their weapons, or injured/killed a comrade or themselves.

Andrew Martin wrote:

Fang Langford wrote: In fact, in normal life, does one even think in percentages? In predictability? In repeatability? Or do they 'just do it?'

In real life, I've come across a number of people who are definitely not gamers, who measure their health status by saying they're 100% or even a lesser figure.

Andrew Martin wrote: I've also found that for skills like typing and computer programming and a number of other tasks (eg production lines) it's possible to get a percentage for success and failure, based on what works and what doesn't; this can directly translate to skill percentage in a game system.

Andrew Martin wrote: Certainly for intelligent/sentient machines or androids (and logical aliens), there's lots of examples in the media of their stating chances and percentages, which usually become 100%. :)

Andrew Martin wrote: And for those tasks where people "just do it", they usually have near 100% ability anyway. :)

Hello,

This thread is wandering badly, I think. Let's please focus on the stated issue in the first post.

I was afraid that people would mis-read Mike's rant about opposed vs. unopposed rolls, and now I think it did happen.

The point is not about whether one is better than the other. The point is about combining the two methods in one game system. The classic example is to say, "When climbing a cliff, roll against your skill target number," and to say, "When fighting, roll against your skill target number, your foe rolls against his, and then compare the degrees of success."

Whether you call it "active vs. passive," "opposed vs. unopposed," or any of the other terms found in game texts, it's always the same thing.

Here's the problem with it. What happens is that the skill target numbers and the fighting/conflict target numbers are operating, in terms of success, on two totally different probability scales. That's in and of itself inelegant, at the very least ... and then, the real trouble shows up when the "pips" of the target numbers are "bought" using points of equal value, which is the most widespread method of character creation in games that do this in the first place. This leads to breakpoint problems.

The actual recommendation is this: use only target numbers, with what's called unopposed rolls, for everything (The Whispering Vault); or use only opposed rolls, without target numbers, for everything (Sorcerer).

[I am talking about developing a single resolution system, not about having two systems for non-overlapping elements of play - in the latter case, then having one be opposed and one be unopposed is cool. It's the combination, in-play or across-points, that causes trouble.]

I hope this clears up the issue slightly. There's no point in discussing the differences between opposed vs. unopposed in terms of unique virtues.

Best,
Ron

Fang,
I think people DO estimate their chances before doing something, if they mattter. It's just that as you and Chris pointed out, most tasks in reality will almost always 'succede', the distribution is one of quality of the output, rather than a probabilty densify function of success or failure. Quality can refer to how long the task takes, the quality of the output, or both. Very simple tasks only vary in time(running a mile), while cooking varies in both quality and time, and our old friend, jumping the chasm varies only in quality(how far you jump-which the chasm makes a binary value). What failure chances there are come from the task being impossible(no way I can do this without an allen wrench). Most systems conflate the impossiblity of the task with the quality of the trial.
Back to the original point though, I think people DO estimate their chances in a heuristic manner, if failure is an option. A crook may estimate their chances of commiting a crime(we figured we could get away with it). If given a task, a worker will pick an amount of time for that they think they have a good chance of being done in (assuming the penalties for not being done in that time are fairly bad). If I throw something away I estimate my chances of getting in the wastebasket before deciding weather to get up or not, ect.
In conclusion: I think people DO estimate their chances, but there are two other factors : 1)most tests aren't pass/fail in RL, usually it's the output quality measured against something to determinet success/failure. 2)The probablities aren't as obvious as they are in a RPG.

There's no point in discussing the differences between opposed vs. unopposed in terms of unique virtues.

Thanks Ron.

Interestingly, I say nothing in my rant (to which I refer people, and to which I, perhaps arrogantly, assume this post is aimed) that contradicts anything that the original poster has said. I have my own opinions on those subjects brought up as myth, and we could debate those separately. My objection is that people put separate mechanics for these situations just because other systems do. Without any consideration of potential effects.

The one argument that I hear that contradicts this, potentially, is that separating these mechanics "feels" right. This is essentially what Mr. Mendes must be saying when he says that:

Can we call the track the opposer and roll for it? Sure. We can. If we rate simplicity several orders of magnitude higher than realism. The truth is, the track is just there. It is not a source of randomness.

Hey Damion,

damion wrote: In conclusion: I think people DO estimate their chances, but there are two other factors : 1)most tests aren't pass/fail in RL, usually it's the output quality measured against something to determine success/failure. 2)The probabilities aren't as obvious as they are in a RPG.

damion wrote: In conclusion: I think people DO estimate their chances, but there are two other factors : 1)most tests aren't pass/fail in RL, usually it's the output quality measured against something to determinet success/failure. 2)The probablities aren't as obvious as they are in a RPG.

Heya, :)

Le Joueur wrote:

JMendes wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: Myth #4: Role-playing games are best served by modeling reality at every turn.

Please endeavor to explain myth #4 to a Simulationist without insulting him.

That may be hard. First of all, what kind of Simulationist are you? Second, how thin-skinned are you?

The biggest cannon brought to bear on this situation is the difference between realism and verisimilitude.

And on the point of simulation, <...> the point needs to be made about how much of this the people playing the game will even notice.

Myth #1: Opposed die rolls have no more information than unopposed ones.

That one is actually true. They're just dice, the numbers could mean anything.

Myth #2: Opposed rolls should be less predictable than unopposed ones.

This depends largely on two things. What you mean by predictable and how important it is to be able to predict the outcome of a game mechanic. Mike Holmes makes a really succinct statement

Myth #3: If you must have opposed rolls, everything should be abstracted to an opposed roll.

This gets at the heart of Mike's Rant

I echo his commentary on sticking to one or the other.

The point demonstrated by your examples is that it will be quite hard to create a system that has both opposed and unopposed mechanics that appear the same.

Have two separate resolution mechanics and people will ask why. Try to make one look like a mere feature of the other and you sacrifice that realism or verisimilitude or Simulationism or whatever else was at stake here.

not so much a myth as bias on your part <...>But when you pose them as myths, you tickle the Devil's Advocate in me.

This posting is, in fact, my opinion.

Also, Ron Edwards wrote: The point is not about whether one is better than the other. The point is about combining the two methods in one game system.

What happens is that the skill target numbers and the fighting/conflict target numbers are operating, in terms of success, on two totally different probability scales. That's in and of itself inelegant, at the very least

the real trouble shows up when the "pips" of the target numbers are "bought" using points of equal value, which is the most widespread method of character creation in games that do this in the first place.

This leads to breakpoint problems.

There's no point in discussing the differences between opposed vs. unopposed in terms of unique virtues.

Finally, Mike Holmes wrote: Interestingly, I say nothing in my rant (to which I refer people, and to which I, perhaps arrogantly, assume this post is aimed)

I have my own opinions on those subjects brought up as myth

My objection is that people put separate mechanics for these situations just because other systems do. Without any consideration of potential effects.

This is essentially what Mr. Mendes must be saying

What he must be saying is that one should only roll for those things that "seem" random, or are random enough that they would have a discernable effect. Such that players will feel that the dice being rolled are having an effect on the game that somehow feels like how daily reality affects them.

My point regarding this is that players should ignore the mechanics, and just focus on the outcome.

(see TROS for a counter example of where the dice really go beyond simple modeling)

I've never heard of a player playing Sorcerer say, "You know, it seems weird that you're rolling dice for the lock". In fact, they don't think that this is happening at all.

In any case, if you are designing a game and your specific goal is to appeal to people who you feel would prefer this sort of dichotomy, and prefer it despite the greater complexity, then great. You have given it at least due consideration. Which is all I ask for. In fact, even better reasons have been given why multiple resolution systems have been included in some games. And to that extent, I support such decisions.

Hi Joao (cool name!),

I think this is an excellent, interesting thread, so there's no need for apologies. The "myth" thing doesn't bug me at all.

On the slight downside, I'm not going to do well (personally, not as a moderator) with line-by-line parsing of responses. You know, where you quote a sentence, then respond to it, then quote another sentence, and respond to that ... my experience is that such a method often creates a barrier to understanding one another's points, in a discussion. In the Forge guidelines, we ask that people keep it to a minimum, although it's not outlawed or anything. My point here is to say that I, myself, am going to have a hard time responding to such posts.

The issue seems to come down to why and how I think an opposed-unopposed combination of dice systems tends to decrease a game's "function" (for lack of a better word), and to compare why and how you see the combination either as adequate or even desirable.

Is that where we are?

Best,
Ron

Coolness. However, this view was not well expressed in your previous post.

Ahey, :)

Ron Edwards wrote: The issue seems to come down to why and how I think an opposed-unopposed combination of dice systems tends to decrease a game's "function" (for lack of a better word), and to compare why and how you see the combination either as adequate or even desirable.

JMendes wrote:
Let me add an interesting point here: virtually every dual-handling system I've ever seen has a thoroughly inconsistent handling of other characters aiding you. To wit, if we are rolling opposed dice because of the additional source of fortune, then other characters aiding should also add additional rolls of dice, not some arbitrary modifier.