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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9015673" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't think that really matters. As you are speaking to a math guy (I hesitate to use the term 'mathematician' as I don't really feel that my studies ever went far enough to warrant such a title) 100, 1000, and 10^43 power are all simply countable integer numbers of states. Its thus still very much true that the states of chess are limited to an infinitesimal fraction of those available in a D&amp;D game, and in fact this is even more so in that the VAST majority of the chess 'configuration space' is filled with uninteresting chaff. The fact that chess books can give a thorough grounding in the tactics and strategy of chess by presenting perhaps less than 100 games, so maybe 5000 states pretty much tells me that this line of argument doesn't go much of anywhere useful. I can easily tell the difference between chess and D&amp;D. In fact, at the age of 13, in 1975, when I heard about the IDEA of D&amp;D, I instantly and immediately grasped this exact difference! It was like an electric shock, the implications were instantly apparent! Now, had I been conversant at that time with Free Kriegsspiel or Dave and Co.'s Braunsteins I might have been less shocked, but it was definitely a revelation to my naive brain, and the 'openness' of D&amp;D was exactly what I immediately saw as its most salient characteristic.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9015673, member: 82106"] I don't think that really matters. As you are speaking to a math guy (I hesitate to use the term 'mathematician' as I don't really feel that my studies ever went far enough to warrant such a title) 100, 1000, and 10^43 power are all simply countable integer numbers of states. Its thus still very much true that the states of chess are limited to an infinitesimal fraction of those available in a D&D game, and in fact this is even more so in that the VAST majority of the chess 'configuration space' is filled with uninteresting chaff. The fact that chess books can give a thorough grounding in the tactics and strategy of chess by presenting perhaps less than 100 games, so maybe 5000 states pretty much tells me that this line of argument doesn't go much of anywhere useful. I can easily tell the difference between chess and D&D. In fact, at the age of 13, in 1975, when I heard about the IDEA of D&D, I instantly and immediately grasped this exact difference! It was like an electric shock, the implications were instantly apparent! Now, had I been conversant at that time with Free Kriegsspiel or Dave and Co.'s Braunsteins I might have been less shocked, but it was definitely a revelation to my naive brain, and the 'openness' of D&D was exactly what I immediately saw as its most salient characteristic. [/QUOTE]

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