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<blockquote data-quote="Dethklok" data-source="post: 6135890" data-attributes="member: 6746469"><p>Waking up every forty minutes to roll a die and add pennies into a pile is a form of sleep deprivation.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The GM is not a computer. I have no interest in programming an experience point reward system on my laptop.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Absolutely, Sword of Spirit.</p><p></p><p>To address point 1, clearly, more granularity is desirable; equally clearly, less complicated arithmetic is also better. </p><p></p><p>Less obvious is the fact that these benefits are likely to suffer from diminishing marginal utility. A game where "1+1" or "1 -1" are the most complicated operations to be completed is not likely to be much faster or better than one where numbers as large as 2 must be manipulated. Likewise granularity of a million is not much better than a hundred - otherwise people would regularly tell time to the second, or buy meat weighed to the dram.</p><p></p><p>The issues you raise at point 2 and 3 are harder to address, but I think there are costs and benefits to be discussed there as well - people like shiny dice of different shapes and colors, but in his review of <em>Dragon Warriors</em>, creator Dave Morris regretted using polyhedrals instead of d6 only, as he said it made the game less accessible. (For his own games, he evidently doesn't use <em>Dragon Warriors</em>, and apparently prefers a form of GURPS that he calls <a href="http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2010/07/7urps.html" target="_blank">7URPS</a> - it has seven attributes instead of only four.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's true, Mike, but I think your conclusion does not follow:</p><p></p><p></p><p>Answers to the question "what is the integral of 4x with respect to x" will vary from person to person, but some answers are clearly better than others. Now, it <em>is</em> true that some questions are purely subjective, like, "do you prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream?" So clearly subjectivity can play the dominant or even exclusive role in decision making. But different dice systems come with different benefits and costs, and this mimics situations from in engineering and design, where effective solutions must maximize benefits and minimize costs.</p><p></p><p>For must situations, 1d2 has insufficient granularity, while 1d100 just has insufficient speed and ease of use. Dice systems that maximize benefits and minimize costs will generally fall somewhere in between 1d2 and 1d100.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Really? Actually that's pretty cool! Not only since I've heard that 1st Edition was closer to Straight Paranoia than the later editions, but also because 1st Edition was reviewed as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_rpg#2nd_edition" target="_blank">"cumbersome," "tricky"</a> and riddled with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_rpg#2nd_edition" target="_blank">"complications"</a> relative to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_rpg#2nd_edition" target="_blank">"slick"</a> 2nd Edition.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dethklok, post: 6135890, member: 6746469"] Waking up every forty minutes to roll a die and add pennies into a pile is a form of sleep deprivation. The GM is not a computer. I have no interest in programming an experience point reward system on my laptop. Absolutely, Sword of Spirit. To address point 1, clearly, more granularity is desirable; equally clearly, less complicated arithmetic is also better. Less obvious is the fact that these benefits are likely to suffer from diminishing marginal utility. A game where "1+1" or "1 -1" are the most complicated operations to be completed is not likely to be much faster or better than one where numbers as large as 2 must be manipulated. Likewise granularity of a million is not much better than a hundred - otherwise people would regularly tell time to the second, or buy meat weighed to the dram. The issues you raise at point 2 and 3 are harder to address, but I think there are costs and benefits to be discussed there as well - people like shiny dice of different shapes and colors, but in his review of [I]Dragon Warriors[/I], creator Dave Morris regretted using polyhedrals instead of d6 only, as he said it made the game less accessible. (For his own games, he evidently doesn't use [I]Dragon Warriors[/I], and apparently prefers a form of GURPS that he calls [URL="http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2010/07/7urps.html"]7URPS[/URL] - it has seven attributes instead of only four.) That's true, Mike, but I think your conclusion does not follow: Answers to the question "what is the integral of 4x with respect to x" will vary from person to person, but some answers are clearly better than others. Now, it [I]is[/I] true that some questions are purely subjective, like, "do you prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream?" So clearly subjectivity can play the dominant or even exclusive role in decision making. But different dice systems come with different benefits and costs, and this mimics situations from in engineering and design, where effective solutions must maximize benefits and minimize costs. For must situations, 1d2 has insufficient granularity, while 1d100 just has insufficient speed and ease of use. Dice systems that maximize benefits and minimize costs will generally fall somewhere in between 1d2 and 1d100. Really? Actually that's pretty cool! Not only since I've heard that 1st Edition was closer to Straight Paranoia than the later editions, but also because 1st Edition was reviewed as [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_rpg#2nd_edition"]"cumbersome," "tricky"[/URL] and riddled with [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_rpg#2nd_edition"]"complications"[/URL] relative to [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_rpg#2nd_edition"]"slick"[/URL] 2nd Edition. [/QUOTE]
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