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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8159098" data-attributes="member: 85555">I see a lot of similarities and a lot of differences that may shape how we see the world. My background is mainly in striking: taekwondo, muay thai, sanshou, boxing and some Judo. I trained at a couple of MMA gyms and even took BJJ at them, but despite taking the classes, BJJ was always too much like learning math for me (not a knock against the style, as it is highly effective, just I never seemed to absorb it that well and afterwards my brain was exhausted, like I had been doing algebra or learning a new language). So I may or may not be able to grok the example you gave as BJJ is a style, I don't really have a firm handle on. I am also much smaller than you (I am 5'7" and when I competed was at 145----presently around 160). I do think strikers and grapplers tend to see the world a little differently and have slightly different personalities. The example you give is pretty specific to BJJ, so it is possible I won't understand how that transfers to something like boxing. First difference between us is I would probably never estimate my success rate in martial arts at 95%. And if I did provide that kind of number, it wouldn't really mean anything (it isn't like I am formulating it off anything more than instinct, experience and what I see in the other person).When I spar with people (or should say sparred, as I haven't been to the gym since Covid), I never get a 95% degree of certainty about anything. I do get a sense of "I could probably take this person", "This person could probably take me", etc. But people are surprising, and with striking especially I can't predict how a match is going to until it happens (I can see weaknesses, and I can formulate a plan, but I can't know how it goes till it starts because I don't know what it will feel like to get hit by them yet, I don't how good their defenses really are against me specifically----I can watch them spar someone else, but that isn't the same as me sparring them). I will say, what you seem to be suggesting is that weight+strength+personal style+experience are all good measures of your overall chances, and if you are solid in all of those and the other person isn't, sure you probably are going to win. It would have to be a very extreme case though for me to say 95% (like if someone is just walking in, and not very athletic looking, and much smaller than me: keep in mind boxing gyms generally pair you with people within your weight category----and if there is a weight disparity there are usually specific instructions to follow so the other person doesn't get hurt). And my understanding is in BJJ this might be even more easy to measure because you generally are not advancing to the next belt unless you can soundly defeat belts in the the rank you presently occupy (it is a good system in my opinion, but correct me if I am wrong about that).But most cases are going to be much more gray than that 95%. I can think of a handful of times I thought something was in the bag for me or the other person. And again, even then, there is always a punchers chance. Most of the time, I really don't have a good idea till things start, how good someone really is. And I just generally have found it unwise to go in with a high level of certainty about an opponent.Also, what you are describing to me is what I would call 'sizing someone up'. In striking usually I look at size, muscle mass, how they carry themselves, the size of their wrists and hands (and if I see them practice I might try to watch their movements). In a game, I wouldn't be sizing up foes unless I specifcally asked to. So this kind of 'how much of a threat is this enemy', would likely arise as me asking the GM if I can look at the threat and try to assess how much of a threat it poses. I would understand, especially if the GM made a secret roll for say some kind of Detect or Perception ability, that I might be wrong about that.I also, despite all this, am definitely not walking around in campaign with probabilities of actions and characters in my head that, if they are violated, will somehow rip me out of the game. Even if I size someone up like above, if it goes a different way, that isn't going to trouble me. If something screams "This is not believable!!!!" then sure, like most people, I react to that. but I have always been more comfortable with things like dice pools because they can cloud probabilities, which feels more realistic to me than say a d100 system (I like plenty of d100 games, just the whole precise probability that I know doesn't feel like the world feels to me) . Also my sense of how things ought to be in this world, are going to be very different from a game or movie (and each of those is going to vary depending on the style or genre).All I can say is in play, playing the way I do, my sense of believability is rarely ever disrupted (and even when it is, its never enough to make me angry, or want to stop playing). Ultimately if what you are after is a game that emulates clearly the probabilities of real life (which I am not), even then you are either going to have a system that handles it, or a person, and both can result in bone headed things. I've played plenty of bad systems that didn't work out probabilities well. But what bothers me usually isn't "I should have at least an 80 percent chance of jumping a gap that large", it is usually more to do with the system just making getting successes hard unnecessarily (actually one of the reasons I am not too keen on 3E any more is I felt you ended up with too many characters that failed at things too often: generally I do like systems that lean more on success). But again, I think this has a lot less to do with probabilities and more to do with getting annoyed that we have to spend 20 minutes fighting because every other attack fails.Hope that answers your question, really trying to give a thorough and honest answer. But this is actually a pretty involved topic</blockquote>

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