How much math should RPGs require?

[MGibster]

I'm a GM. It's always a trick. But so far, my vote is for easy RPG maths, and more role-playing.

I've brought it up before, but Enforcers was an RPG published in 1987 that came with instructions on how to create a spreadsheet in Lotus 123. Character generation required the use of square roots to calculate some of the information on your character sheet. A calculator was required to play this game. I owned it but never played it of course. No way I was doing square roots for fun.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Block Transfer Computation

 

[Smackpixi]

There should be no math other than adding up dice rolls. That’s the point of all the weird dice, all the complicated math already done to tell you what dice you need to roll.

 

[General_Tangent]

I've brought it up before, but Enforcers was an RPG published in 1987 that came with instructions on how to create a spreadsheet in Lotus 123. Character generation required the use of square roots to calculate some of the information on your character sheet. A calculator was required to play this game. I owned it but never played it of course. No way I was doing square roots for fun.

Was this the game? Enforcers

I'd never heard of it until now and it sounds unusual.

 

[General_Tangent]

Back in the day I used to run games with Phoenix Command as I thoughts greater realism would make for exciting gaming. I even wrote a small program on a Casio pocket computer to handle the complex calculations.

Nowadays I prefer rules light games so I can get on with the fun.

 

[Emberashh]

Ive found is important to consider how many instances of math there are. Ie, to complete an action how many times do you have to do math in a row, and why?

This in turn reveals that to-hit roles seldom add anything despite only being one extra instance of math, while exploding dice is nearly always exciting despite being potentially endless math.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Purely psychologically speaking, more complex maths are more palatable in settings expecting characters to be capable of complex maths, like hard sci-fi games. Calculating and mapping movement on a 2D surface using deltaV and such is about the most complex it ever gonna get, and I’ll even enjoy it in a hard sci-fi game. In Star Wars-like setting where my ship slows down to a halt when I run out of fuel, I prefer to leave the maths to a minimum, like my fantasy.

I like this aspect. If the game is going to be nerdy (versus dorky?) then some real-life nerdiness is fair too. Sort of like using playing cards for a wild west game, right?

I think this gets to the primary aspect (for me). It isn't 'How much math skill can an RPG expect from its players?,' it is 'what is the purpose of this math this RPG is expecting of me?' If the math supports a gameplay mode that will itself be engaging, then the math can be pretty complex. If the math is there to generate numbers, the difference of which rarely or barely matter, well then the actual complexity can be pretty low and it will still be more annoying than beneficial.

 

[John Dallman]

You need to distinguish between "math required at start-up" (usually in character generation), "math required in play" and "math required between sessions."

1. I'm happy with chargen requiring table lookups, and maybe a calculator.
2. In-play calculation should ideally be restricted to adding numbers, up to totals of 30 or so, but subtraction is OK, and multiplication and division by integers up to 10 are tolerable if they don't happen often. Any tables should be small enough to copy onto the character sheet.
3. Character updates are often ignored in these discussions, but nobody ever complaints about adding numbers in the tens or hundreds of thousands for D&D experience points. Updates can have the same requirements as character generation.

 

[aco175]

Two points:

1: This is why we got rid of THAC0
2: There is a thread on gaming clubs in schools and on the site are lesson plans on how to use D&D to teach basic skills and trick kids into learning.
3: I recall a South Park episode with the boys having a Dice Studz Gaming Club until the girls started playing and min-maxing the game and beating the boys. As to why they were being beat, Cartman said "Girls do math".

 

[Celebrim]

Generally speaking addition and comparison should be good enough. Ideally, addition should just be one modifier to one or two dice. Crunchier games may allow subtraction and multiplication or division by 2 and more than two dice.

Beware the addition or subtraction of more than one modifier. While it does allow for intricate tactical planning, too many situational modifiers is bad. More than in the worst case 3-5 modifiers means you are writing something that should be a video game, not a tabletop RPG.

At no point should be the math such that the answer doesn't readily come to mind. If players are spending time counting and they are above age 6, then you have a problem either with the system or the process of play.