Gamer's Harper's Index

[alsih2o]

For those of you not familiar, here is a smaple of Harper's Index material-

Percentage of Chicago sushi chefs who are of Japanese descent: 29 [Chicago Reporter survey]
Percentage who are of Mexican or Ecuadoran descent: 30 [Chicago Reporter survey]
Price per family that a Puerto Rican company charged last December for a 5-minute stay in a refrigerated snowscape: $30 [Family Entertainment Inc. (Miramar, P.R.)]
Number of mimes Guatemala's transit department hired last April to administer driver "education" at busy intersections: 20 [Polic'a Municipal del Tr‡nsito (Guatemala City)]
Price of a 12-hour do-it-yourself anger-management course from an online vendor: $165 [Angermgmt.com (Chicago)]
Total number of bids placed on Bidforsurgery.com since last year: 12,600 [Medicine Online Inc. (Huntington Beach, Calif.)]
Estimated number of inquiries the site has received about open-heart surgery: 35 [Medicine Online Inc. (Huntington Beach, Calif.)]
Minimum number of anthrax hoaxes reported in the United States in the three years before September 11: 175 [Monterey Institute for International Studies (Monterey, Calif.)]
Number of members of the rock band Anthrax who say they are hoarding Cipro so as to avoid an "ironic death": 1 [Washington Post, 10/10/01]
Years after Ernest Hemingway killed himself that his transsexual son died last fall in a Miami women's jail: 40 [Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitations Department (Miami, Fla.)/ Harper's research]
Percentage change since 1994 in the number of boys on competitive U.S. high school cheerleading squads: +470 [National Federation of State High School Associations (Indianapolis)]
Percentage change between 1998 and 1999 in the number of women construction workers: +36 [Bureau of Labor Statistics (Washington)]
Minimum number of cats fitted with high-tech listening equipment in a 1967 CIA project: 1 [Victor Marchetti (Vienna, Va.)]
Estimated number of minutes after thea spy cat was released[Central Intelligence Agency] on its first test run that it was killed by a taxi: 10 [Victor Marchetti (Vienna, Va.)]

And a link to an archive (Warning, tends toward the political)- http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2001-12.html

Let's make a Gamer's Index-

Odds that a post on ENWorld is made by Crothian: 1 in 73.5

Odds of a result of 1 on a d20: 1 in 20

Odds of a result of 1 on a d20 when rolling for a BBEG I worked all evening on: 1 in 7

Estimated number of minutes in the average game before a movie reference: 42



Keep it going....

 

[eris404]

For our group, this would be more like:

Estimated number of minutes in the average game before a movie reference: 22

But, back to business:

Minimum number of active threads on ENWorld dealing with paladin code issues: 7
Most common topic response: "Have you tried talking to this person?"

 

[diaglo]

Odds of diaglo posting: OD&D is the only true game.... 1:1

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Odds that a person will post that d20 fails as a rules system: 1 in 10

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Odds of diaglo posting: OD&D is the only true game.... 1:1

I was thinking of posting that, but diaglo beat me to it, go figure.

 

[der_kluge]

We had something like this in a group I was in. We'd take informal bets on it before my friend Victor would show up. It was the number of minutes that my friend Victor would make some lewd sexual reference. The number was usually less than 20 minutes into the game. We were usually right.

 

[Insight]

Odds that your group contains a Powergamer: 1 in 5
Odds that he/she is right now trying to find a way to break your game: 1 in 3
Odds that your GM doesn't own the book they will get it from 100%

 

[MrFilthyIke]

We had something like this in a group I was in. We'd take informal bets on it before my friend Victor would show up. It was the number of minutes that my friend Victor would make some lewd sexual reference. The number was usually less than 20 minutes into the game. We were usually right.

Maybe a mod can chime in with...

Odds of a post needing to be edited: 1 in ???

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Odds that your group contains a Powergamer: 1 in 5
Odds that he/she is right now trying to find a way to break your game: 1 in 3
Odds that your GM doesn't own the book they will get it from 100%

Sight of DM's sad, sobbing, fetal position form: Priceless.

 

[Henry]

Maybe a mod can chime in with...

Odds of a post needing to be edited: 1 in ???

I'll guesstimate and say about 1 in 134.