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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dungeondweller" data-source="post: 4284535" data-attributes="member: 14532">Congratulations to the mathematical minds who've generated this buzz. Some of you have a truly dizzying and impressive grasp of odds and statistics. What I think the entire discussion is lacking, however, is perspective.People with advanced skillsets (mathmeticians being one) tend to try to define and resolve all problems using that advanced skillset. If you're good enough, you can have remarkable success in doing this, to an extent... What you lose, however, is the perspective that your methods and talents are not exclusively qualified to address the bigger picture of the problem.Speaking for the group of people posting here with less than stellar, but better than average, "math" skills (if I may be so vulgar as to lump advanced odds and statistics with basic mathematics), I have to say there's a definite element of realism and practical application missing from this whole discussion. Theory is fine and certainly a solid perspective on the subject, but the end result is that each DM should always expect some amount of playtesting and tweaking when introducing a new role-playing system to their group. A perfectly balanced system, speaking mathematically and making no conjecture as to the system at hand, may well be a superior system in many cases, but the simple fact is that the rules, as written, are going to work just fine for many and not as well for others. There are so many factors involved with how an FRPG system plays out that have nothing to do with math... Trying to approach the entire discussion from a strictly mathematical perspective is, frankly, silly.Speaking for myself and my group, we'll use the rules as written and see how they come out for us. If they're not quite on spot, we will tweak them. I know that probably sounds stupidly simple to some of you, but I've found, for all of our efforts to forge ideal approaches to problem solving, that trial, error, and playtesting are ultimately the most effective.Still, discussion of this nature can absolutely be effective and productive so long as we understand that the math is only one aspect of a much more convoluted question.</blockquote>

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