How much math should RPGs require?

[Umbran]

I'd argue its rarely "for nothing" though it may well be for purposes you personally don't care about.

I have felt, with several games in the past, the the extra math was "for nothing" insofar as the math was supporting a level of granularity that did not make a meaningful difference in play.

F'rex, if randomizers randomizers (say, dice) used only yield one or two significant digits, math with three or four significant digits is a waste of our time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I have felt, with several games in the past, the the extra math was "for nothing" insofar as the math was supporting a level of granularity that did not make a meaningful difference in play.

F'rex, if randomizers randomizers (say, dice) used only yield one or two significant digits, math with three or four significant digits is a waste of our time.

It depends whether that math stops there or totals up. The Hero System deals with multipliers as small as a quarter. That's unlikely to be relevant by itself except when dealing with large base numbers. But its entirely possible to be dealing with multiples of those multipliers, and at the point you've accumulated those, the final result can, indeed, be significant, but you'd only have gotten there by paying attention to those quarters.

(Though I'd be interested in an example, and this is not a gotcha so much as not being sure I'm entirely understanding what you're speaking of).

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I have felt, with several games in the past, the the extra math was "for nothing" insofar as the math was supporting a level of granularity that did not make a meaningful difference in play.

F'rex, if randomizers randomizers (say, dice) used only yield one or two significant digits, math with three or four significant digits is a waste of our time.

But the more dice I use, the closer I can get to the probability distribution I want...

 

[Umbran]

But the more dice I use, the closer I can get to the probability distribution I want...

Yes. Heck, if I recall correctly, if you have an infinite number of dice, with proper weights on each of them, you can perfectly match any probability distribution you might want!

Of course, it is very hard to roll infinite dice.

As a practical matter, there's an issue of diminishing returns - the difference between the probability distribution you really want, and a much simpler one, may only be evident in a small number of rolls. If I only see the difference in, for argument's sake, in one of every 10 combats, how valuable is that difference? At that point, a designer ought to ask themselves whether that fidelity to an ideal pays off in play.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Yeah, in use if I want to generate the population mantissa of a world I'll call (values (floor (expt 10 (random 1.0)))). But a bunch of dice tables is traditional, dammit!

 

[ShinHakkaider]

But time spent doing math, talking to a fellow player instead of PC, checking rule books for bonuses or rules, etc. is not something that becomes part of the cool story (bro) that you tell people afterward.

No, but it's what GETS you to the cool story you tell people afterwards. I ran a 10 year long Curse of the Crimson Throne PF1 campaign with people who had various levels of arithmetic aptitude. High level Pathfinder 1e play tends to have a fair bit of modifiers and exception based rules. But all of the decisions, die rolls and modifiers and rules look ups got us to the end of what was a mostly fun and fantastic campaign.

I vehemently disagree with the idea that none of those things matter and only the end result does.

 

[Umbran]

Yeah, in use if I want to generate the population mantissa of a world I'll call (values (floor (expt 10 (random 1.0)))). But a bunch of dice tables is traditional, dammit!

I am not really concerned with world-generation in this. I am more referring to math in character building and in a session of play.

And, ultimately, if that tradition gives you warm and fuzzy feelings, that's cool. I personally find that minutiae that are unlikely to be noticed in game play to be a waste of my gaming time, which is restricted enough to be very valuable to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And, ultimately, if that tradition gives you warm and fuzzy feelings, that's cool. I personally find that minutiae that are unlikely to be noticed in game play to be a waste of my gaming time, which is restricted enough to be very valuable to me.

I'd call that a perfectly legitimate position, and is obviously common given many modern designs. Of course what counts as "minutiae" and what will be "noticed" is very much a matter of perspective, but what else is new?

 

[overgeeked]

No, but it's what GETS you to the cool story you tell people afterwards. I ran a 10 year long Curse of the Crimson Throne PF1 campaign with people who had various levels of arithmetic aptitude. High level Pathfinder 1e play tends to have a fair bit of modifiers and exception based rules. But all of the decisions, die rolls and modifiers and rules look ups got us to the end of what was a mostly fun and fantastic campaign.

I vehemently disagree with the idea that none of those things matter and only the end result does.

But you can get to the cool story without all the maths. That's the point. You don't have to have all the modifiers and rules look ups to get the cool story. It's a choice, not a requirement.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But you can get to the cool story without all the maths. That's the point. You don't have to have all the modifiers and rules look ups to get the cool story. It's a choice, not a requirement.

Of course, not everyone playing RPGs is entirely just about the cool story. As an analogy I've made before, most of the time I really do want my chocolate with my peanut butter.