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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 8992290" data-attributes="member: 7035894">There's a reason the most popular actual play show, by far, is called "Critical Role" (and it's not just the double entendre). Those guys are professional entertainers, trained to recognize the fun mileage you can get out of a notable event, like a natural 20 (or a natural 1).Great read, as always. Two factors that I think are also really important to consider is the value added by dice as story randomizers, and the particular role that progression plays in conjunction with dice.1. To the former, I think that dice, along with rules on how to interpret them, are really what give D&D it's shape. They are the random mutations that determine how the story evolves, to a more or less significant degree, depending on the size of the sandbox that the DM is comfortable working with. And it now occurs to me that I could explore the evolution analogy a lot more rigorously, but maybe another time. Anyhow, randomization is what makes the story fun, IMO. I love that even as the DM, I don't know how it is going to come out (this is one reason that I rarely run full, pre-written adventures as the outcomes tend to be too predetermined).I think the real possibility of character death is an important narrative trope that is linked to dice and randomization, but that is simply a question of taste. I like art that includes tragedy, but I think this is a good discussion to have at session 0 so that everyone is on the same page.2. I've previously written about the way that dice create a partial reward schedule, and am in full agreement with you here. It's probably common knowledge, but in case it isn't, intermittent reward patterns are incredibly powerful at affecting behaviour. Not just in humans. It's universally hard-wired into your brain stem, so the root evolutionary causes have to be pervasive.What lately I've been lately speculating about is how the partial reward schedule created by dice-rolling in an RPG interacts with character progression to create an addictive response. The whole point of progression is that you slowly earn advantage on your dice rolls - tasks become easier to succeed at, and your chance of reward goes up (incidentally, I think this is why it is important that a natural 1 always fails and a natural 20 always succeeds, so there is always a chance, either way - I therefore think D&D should codify both). I speculate that we keep coming back because we love the potential to improve our reward schedule. Like, love it at a primal level, even if it is here being expressed in a highly abstract way.What is fascinating is that progression in most games is often mostly an illusion - yes, you get better but your tasks get commeasurately harder, so you are effectively running on a treadmill. I find it fascinating that the idea  or illusion of progression is possibly just as compelling as actual progression.To your point about the tactile and other pleasures of dice...hmmm. Hard to separate nature and nurture in this regard. My first instinct is to talk about collectibility, sensation, etc. but I have been conditioned to value particular forms of these things. I notice that when I play with new students who have no experience of D&D they are absolutely fine with rolling on DnDBeyond (plus it does the math for them). I offer to lend them dice, and about half are not interested. I don't think there is necessarily anything inherent to the human species that makes physical dice objectively more attractive than virtual dice, but I would love to see a study.</blockquote>

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