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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hillsy7" data-source="post: 7232385" data-attributes="member: 6689191">How to trick a Player into thinking probability is not probability while maintaining D&D mechanics.So – a quick bit of background. [SBLOCK]Years ago, a few friends and I had a massive nostalgia kick and invested in Heroquest! However, after a few play-throughs it became harder for the game to test the players mechanically: After some questing, most players can end up with 5 or 6 defence dice and ….[Maths,Maths,maths,maths]….kill about 35 Gargoyles in a row. So for our next game I skinned some complexity over the top using a D12 and the HQ dice to approximate a simpl-ish combat system. They quite liked it, I got carried away and built 10 classes with 18 abilities each, and after a couple more games, haven’t played it since.Wishing to revive that system I was sort of proud of, I started to plot out a rough video game mechanic as I was teaching myself Unity at the time. Turn-based, dungeon crawl, encounter based combat and I’ll skin the exploration RPG over the top if I sold it to bioware or whatever. But I wanted something unique in there that utilised Unity’s abilities (and taught me how to use it differently too, of course!). So, how about Line of Sight and grid movement was all done first person. Completely turn and grid based, but the POV was locked in someone’s head. Then it occurred it could be a great way of building immersion: You’d hear the monster moving behind you and spin around to see it’s attacking! And you’d have to defend by moving the mouse to control a shield quickly enough to block, but that would depend on your Defence skill and equipment and if you had abilities, controlling how fast you could move and how much time you had…..There it was – I had a unique idea all of a sudden that I could program in using my existing maths, but felt mechanical and skilful.[/SBLOCK]The solution? Merge D&D with Golf! That’s right. D&D. And Golf!Before you call the authorities, there is a method here. Golf games when I was growing up had one mechanic. A bar from -10 to +110 – a line would then move from 0 towards the top and you’d stop it depending on the power you wanted (anything over 100 altered the accuracy), it would then move back, and how close you stopped it to zero reflected accuracy. Simple. It outputted 3 variables: Power (0-110%), Accuracy (Distance from 0), and a Miss coefficient (how much over 100). Starting to sound familiar yet?Power, Accuracy, and Miss Chance? You *could* swap in Damage, To-Hit, and Enemy AC. You could have a power bar where you need to stop in a range “To hit” and then near a point of max damage that gradates towards min damage the further from that point. The size of the “To Hit” Zone depends on the enemy AC. (and maybe the bar moves slower the higher the attack bonus)OK, you say, but isn’t that a skill game, not random probability? Well, yes. Yes it is. However, due to the wonders of human fallibility and computer maths, we can tailor the expected range of result to closely match that of d20 probability. So let’s say that Joe Public under testing (and after some quick familiarity practice) consistently lands within 50 pixels of the target line. Great. Half the time, it’s within 20 pixels. Even Better. Now we can effectively create a gradient across the pixels where 50 equals Nat 1, 0 equals Nat 20, and 20 pixels away equals 10.5. Suddenly, you have a probability curve. And importantly, the likelihood of hitting certain numbers is somewhat randomised. And the same can be applied to the second Damage marker. Plus you can modify speed, pointer size, add multiple “To-Hit” markers, change probability curve size, rhythm game mechanics…….The actual details of this I could ruminate on all day, especially how to modify gradations of damage to fill the gaps in the “Hit”/“Miss” damage spikes and lack of saving throw subtelty – however, the key point here is that you can assess a person’s reaction speed, and build probability curves off of that that equalise the likelihood of an outcome mimic a 1 in 20 dice roll. Not exactly, but close enough around the key ranges (6-13) for practical purposes.So why do this? So now the player feels, even though we’ve built the probability into the system, that success and failure is under their control. There is a line you need to stop on, and you control it. It’s similar to how rolling a dice give’s you the illusion of control because you are physically interfacing with it – how many people blame themselves for consistently rolling badly, or know “That guy” who only rolls 15+? It’s a weird psychological twist that a physical interface imparts skill, while unseen probability tends to invoke luck (or unfairness). Ask yourself why no one wants the GM to make every D20 roll – because of ownership of the results and some odd illusion of control.With this mini-game interface, turn based combat will flow just as well (golf is, after all, a turn-based combat system), balanced with the right maths it’s keeps variablilty, the interface can look incredible, you can add in variations based on the actions involved (Melee Attack, making a save, casting a spell, making a monster make a spell save, advantage/disadvantage, blocking an attack), and additionally the player does everything – he is also active in his own defence (GMs don’t need to roll attacks after all).Anyways – that’s my wacky idea for solving the issue of large fail probability in D&D when porting to a video game.I talk too much......</blockquote>

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