05-29-2018, 03:06 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Dice odds without dice
Situation: Road trip with the kids who ask if we can play DFRPG in the car. They remember their characters' key stats pretty well. I'm pretty good at making up scenarios on the fly. We have no dice and no digital tech.
What's the most elegant solution for determining success/failure without dice? I was thinking that if I knew the probabilities of success on three dice (e.g., from the table on the back cover of Adventurers), I could select a random number from 1 to 100. Then split the probability of success on both sides of the secret target and have the kids guess a number. So, for example, with skill 10, they have a 50% chance of success. If I picked 50 as the target, they would have to guess a number between 25 and 75 to succeed. If criticals mattered, I could say 49-50 is a critical success and 1 and 100 would be critical failures. Similarly, I could measure the degree of success or failure easily enough in percentage terms. The scale would have to wrap around for this to work. So if I chose 90 as the secret target, with 50% odds, they would need to choose from 65-100 or 1-15 to succeed. 16-64 would be a failure, with 40/41 being a critical failure. Does this make mathematical sense? Any wrinkles I'm missing? One concern was how could I pick target numbers "randomly." That's hard, obviously, but maybe I could use the tenths digit on the odometer combined, perhaps, with license plate numbers or passing signs to help me stay reasonably unpredictable. |
05-29-2018, 03:20 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Dice odds without dice
Buy a prize out of a gumball machine. Buy three dice that will fit inside of it, with one of the dice being an off-color. Instant 1d-2d-3d shaker.
Or, you can buy these at Walmart or Amazon.
__________________
Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
05-29-2018, 04:58 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: traveller
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Re: Dice odds without dice
Steffan O'Sullivan (who wrote GURPS Swashbucklers, among other things) created the Sherpa RPG for (something like) this situation. He uses the last digit on a running stopwatch as a randomizer. An early version of the game is available online from the website linked.
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05-29-2018, 10:01 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Central Texas, north of Austin
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Re: Dice odds without dice
A possible option is to investigate the success mechanic in the RPG Cavemaster by Jeff Dee and Talzhemir Mrr.
http://unigames.us/shop/ I played this with the authors at a convention several years ago. From what I remember, the player competes with the GM in which each separates and hides a number of skill stones between their hands. By randomly choosing the opponents' hands, a quantity of stones is revealed to determine a winner (and margin?) of the contest. It may be possible to convert the mechanic to fit other random number generations. Since it is supposed to be simple enough for our ancestors to play in a cave, it may be possible to adapt it to car travel. I guess it could be a bit hazardous for a driver to fiddle with sets of stones if he doesn't have an assistant . . . and may be hard to steer with fistfuls ;-) Maybe you could somehow designate a number of "stones" in your virtual hands. |
05-30-2018, 09:16 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Dice odds without dice
Dice cups can also help, as well as using the lid of a game box (or other small box) to roll into. The box stops the die from escaping under a seat, and the dice cup helps everyone feel good about how random the roll is even though the box could be on a wonky angle.
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All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table A Wiki for my F2F Group A neglected GURPS blog |
05-30-2018, 11:11 AM | #6 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Dice odds without dice
Smart phone or tablet with a dice roller app? Anyone?
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05-30-2018, 11:14 AM | #7 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Dice odds without dice
According to OP: 'We have no dice and no digital tech.' Otherwise, yes, it's by far the easiest solution.
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05-30-2018, 11:39 AM | #8 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Binghamton, NY, USA. Near the river Styx in the 5th Circle.
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Re: Dice odds without dice
Actually, it just occurred to me you can get an Electronic Yahtzee game for under $10 that will serve as a dice roller just fine and last forever on a set of batteries.
While I realise that one of the stipulations of the original post was to not have dice, the problem is that you can't generate anything approaching truly random numbers without an external tool helping you (whether it's a deck of cards, dice, or electronic app/game). Humans are particularly bad at generating random numbers, so any attempt to do so without tools is likely to be skewed (purposefully or not). Even using license plates and road signs... which license plate you choose is a conscious choice, and they are not truly randomized as you tend to travel with similar vehicles on the road or see the same road signs multiple times.
__________________
Eric B. Smith GURPS Data File Coordinator GURPSLand I shall pull the pin from this healing grenade and... Kaboom-baya. |
05-30-2018, 12:25 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Dice odds without dice
Ultimately, it's clearly better to use a randomizing tool. (And thanks for the great suggestions along those lines.) We got to musing about the possibility of guessing numbers in the car, which then got me interested in the theory of how one could use guessing numbers as a randomizer.
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05-30-2018, 12:39 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Dice odds without dice
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