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Worlds of Design: Always Tell Me the Odds
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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7997851" data-attributes="member: 71699"><p>I feel like an important DM skill is sizing how much you are increasing or worsening the odds. Say you concede to a group check instead of individual checks: how much difference is that making? Suppose you apply disadvantage or even a rare flat minus or penalty die, is that going to be a big or small change? Sizing doesn't need to be exact to be useful.</p><p></p><p>When you say that hard is 30% chance of success, you are saying a number of things. On the surface, you are saying that on roughly three times that I try this, I only succeed once. If using a d20 and the consequences of failure rules from the DMG, you are also saying that about half the time something very bad happens. You're saying that bardic inspiration will increase your chance of success to close to a coin-flip. At 60%, bardic inspiration nearly halves the count of possible worlds in which you fail. And then there are contests, where the bar is not necessarily fixed.</p><p></p><p>The difference between success on 15-20 and success on 9-20 is a complex beast. What's at stake also matters. A 40% chance of perma-death versus a 60% chance of losing 1gp say. That context is crucial.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Perhaps in the end all that needs to be grokked is exactly that which is intuitive. This is where I see some virtue in the OP. A DM needs a sense for when chances are good or bad remembering that they compound over trials, and against that what is going to produce a big change, and what a small change, so that they can consciously apply whichever they want.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 7997851, member: 71699"] I feel like an important DM skill is sizing how much you are increasing or worsening the odds. Say you concede to a group check instead of individual checks: how much difference is that making? Suppose you apply disadvantage or even a rare flat minus or penalty die, is that going to be a big or small change? Sizing doesn't need to be exact to be useful. When you say that hard is 30% chance of success, you are saying a number of things. On the surface, you are saying that on roughly three times that I try this, I only succeed once. If using a d20 and the consequences of failure rules from the DMG, you are also saying that about half the time something very bad happens. You're saying that bardic inspiration will increase your chance of success to close to a coin-flip. At 60%, bardic inspiration nearly halves the count of possible worlds in which you fail. And then there are contests, where the bar is not necessarily fixed. The difference between success on 15-20 and success on 9-20 is a complex beast. What's at stake also matters. A 40% chance of perma-death versus a 60% chance of losing 1gp say. That context is crucial. Perhaps in the end all that needs to be grokked is exactly that which is intuitive. This is where I see some virtue in the OP. A DM needs a sense for when chances are good or bad remembering that they compound over trials, and against that what is going to produce a big change, and what a small change, so that they can consciously apply whichever they want. [/QUOTE]
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