D&D and the RNG?

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CarpeGuitarrem
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by CarpeGuitarrem »

JW wrote:
...so you want each individual swing to have a bell curve? How would that be done? I won't make any statements based off assumptions and will wait for your response instead.
Well, it would be interesting to play around with, I'm not 100% sure how to implement it.

A simple way to do it would be a standard deviation curve + random numbers.

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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by JW »

CarpeGuitarrem wrote:
JW wrote:
...so you want each individual swing to have a bell curve? How would that be done? I won't make any statements based off assumptions and will wait for your response instead.
Well, it would be interesting to play around with, I'm not 100% sure how to implement it.

A simple way to do it would be a standard deviation curve + random numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stand ... iagram.svg
Right...I have no problem with the idea of a bell curve. I am well versed in suchmatters as it turns out. What I am asking you is how you would implement it, which is what you do not seem to know.

I guess I'm wondering what you intend to improve if you do not see how you can improve it?

And I don't mean you need to know the code....I mean what would you have done differently if your thinking of it made it code?
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by CarpeGuitarrem »

I'd say some sort of alteration to the hit system. You wouldn't even see anything visibly change, merely the hits. I'd probably say that you could implement a bell curve based on the following sort of thing...

10%
20%
30%
40%
50%

Being the lower half of the deviation, and

60%
70%
80%
90%
100%

being the upper half.

So you would, for example, be dealing with a 34% chance to get 50%, a 34% chance to get 60%. I think. It depends how you draw the lines of the bell curve. It may be slightly less. But it would basically also scale to where the 10% and 100% hits occur hardly ever.

The deal is, having the percentages there does muddle things, because if you use a bell curve, percentages are no longer accurate. But if you were to use physical numbers, it becomes more obvious how you'd implement it.

Generate a percentage number. Check that number against the percentage in the standard deviation table. Round accordingly. You get a number which you can then check against a defense. I don't know how to code it, but that's the general concept. You put your random percent into the standard deviation thing, and I can see if I can dredge up how to work the math on this, but then you can match the resulting value to a value between 10 and 100. Like, I think that you should be able to calculate how many standard deviations a percentage is, away from the median, and that should be able to give you a value on the X-axis of that chart, which you can then subdivide into the appropriate number of sections.
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JW
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by JW »

CarpeGuitarrem wrote:I'd say some sort of alteration to the hit system. You wouldn't even see anything visibly change, merely the hits. I'd probably say that you could implement a bell curve based on the following sort of thing...
...
So you would, for example, be dealing with a 34% chance to get 50%, a 34% chance to get 60%. I think. It depends how you draw the lines of the bell curve. It may be slightly less. But it would basically also scale to where the 10% and 100% hits occur hardly ever.
So....you have a % chance to get a % chance to hit? How would standing on defensive terrain differ? An elf on forest would no longer have 70%?

Pardon me for asking more questions but your idea is not coming across very clearly.
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by CarpeGuitarrem »

JW wrote:
CarpeGuitarrem wrote:I'd say some sort of alteration to the hit system. You wouldn't even see anything visibly change, merely the hits. I'd probably say that you could implement a bell curve based on the following sort of thing...
...
So you would, for example, be dealing with a 34% chance to get 50%, a 34% chance to get 60%. I think. It depends how you draw the lines of the bell curve. It may be slightly less. But it would basically also scale to where the 10% and 100% hits occur hardly ever.
So....you have a % chance to get a % chance to hit? How would standing on defensive terrain differ? An elf on forest would no longer have 70%?

Pardon me for asking more questions but your idea is not coming across very clearly.
Well, this would make the second % a bit arbitrary. You could just knock the % marker off, and say that an elf on forest has 70 defense. Then, the standard deviation curve produces a result from 10 to 100, and you compare that to the defense. So the defenses wouldn't change. All that would change is the method used to generate the actual number that's compared to the percentage. Most units would have 40 defense on plains, magical attacks would act like they were attacking 30 defense, etc.

You could use the percentage symbol, too, and leave players none the wiser, and simply tell them that attacks will tend towards 50% and 60%. (Granted this, would make the game more lethal, because most attacks will hit on normal terrain, and thus forest terrain for elves and mountain terrain for dwarves, as well as footpad defenses, would be much more valuable.)
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by JW »

CarpeGuitarrem wrote:Well, this would make the second % a bit arbitrary. You could just knock the % marker off, and say that an elf on forest has 70 defense. Then, the standard deviation curve produces a result from 10 to 100, and you compare that to the defense. So the defenses wouldn't change. All that would change is the method used to generate the actual number that's compared to the percentage. Most units would have 40 defense on plains, magical attacks would act like they were attacking 30 defense, etc.

You could use the percentage symbol, too, and leave players none the wiser, and simply tell them that attacks will tend towards 50% and 60%. (Granted this, would make the game more lethal, because most attacks will hit on normal terrain, and thus forest terrain for elves and mountain terrain for dwarves, as well as footpad defenses, would be much more valuable.)
So you would basically lie about the % to hit? Why not just say that elf on forest is 85%, or whatever it would now be? I don't see how you're changing a mechanic at all, rather than just values. This wouldn't change the core issue of luck at all, and may in fact exacerbate it when, instead of being hit 3 times on 70% players are now hit 3 times on 85%. ...but perhaps I am again misunderstanding you. Is the psychological trick the main component at work here? And if so, why not just rename current defenses?
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by CarpeGuitarrem »

JW wrote:
CarpeGuitarrem wrote:Well, this would make the second % a bit arbitrary. You could just knock the % marker off, and say that an elf on forest has 70 defense. Then, the standard deviation curve produces a result from 10 to 100, and you compare that to the defense. So the defenses wouldn't change. All that would change is the method used to generate the actual number that's compared to the percentage. Most units would have 40 defense on plains, magical attacks would act like they were attacking 30 defense, etc.

You could use the percentage symbol, too, and leave players none the wiser, and simply tell them that attacks will tend towards 50% and 60%. (Granted this, would make the game more lethal, because most attacks will hit on normal terrain, and thus forest terrain for elves and mountain terrain for dwarves, as well as footpad defenses, would be much more valuable.)
So you would basically lie about the % to hit? Why not just say that elf on forest is 85%, or whatever it would now be? I don't see how you're changing a mechanic at all, rather than just values. This wouldn't change the core issue of luck at all, and may in fact exacerbate it when, instead of being hit 3 times on 70% players are now hit 3 times on 85%. ...but perhaps I am again misunderstanding you. Is the psychological trick the main component at work here? And if so, why not just rename current defenses?
I do think that it's probably better not to use percents. If you renamed the defenses to numbers, say, 1-10, and then used a bell-curve (standard deviation) system to generate the hits, the greatest number of hits would beat a defense of 4, standard defense on flat ground, whereas many fewer hits would hit a defense of 7, elves in forest.
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by Dave »

None of this really makes any sense. Making an Elf in forest only have a 15% chance to be hit, and a horseman in water a 95% chance to be hit, while a soldier on hills still has a 50% chance to be hit would not make Wesnoth's combat system into a "bell curve". Dressing it up by saying that the Elf has "3" chances to be hit, which is actually a proxy for them having 15% chance to hit would add nothing other than oblique confusion to the game.

Also, Wesnoth's combat system already does have a normal distribution, it simply has rather low granularity.

Elvish Fighter's damage chances against a spearman on hills:

0 - 1/16
5 - 4/16
10 - 6/16
15 - 4/16
20 - 1/16

Different units having different numbers of attacks and thus different granularity in their normal distribution, and managing the luck that this implies is one of the key aspects of Wesnoth's design.

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csarmi
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by csarmi »

We might as well call it binomial distribution, since the probabilities follow a formula like [p^k]*[q^(n-k)]*[n choose k] which resembles the binomial theorem. :)

Jokes aside, it is approximately normal, which means that if we fix p and make n higher, it is more and more like a normal distribution indeed. Dave's description with granularity is perfect.

I don't think there is anything more to it, really.
Changeling
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by Changeling »

I read through the first few posts, and it started to look like a flame war (I'm guessing because of miscommunication.), so I didn't bother with the rest

I'd just like to put my 2 cents in.
I think the difference between D&D and Wesnoth is that the players SEE the dice and ROLL IT THEMSELVES(depending on the DM you play with), whereas in Wesnoth you only see a hit and a miss. I think it'd help if it shows the dice rolling and the RNG number.

IMO, d20 would also be better, too.
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JW
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Re: D&D and the RNG?

Post by JW »

Changeling wrote:I read through the first few posts, and it started to look like a flame war (I'm guessing because of miscommunication.), so I didn't bother with the rest
Well, you missed out on some actual discussion then. It got cooler.
I'd just like to put my 2 cents in.
I think the difference between D&D and Wesnoth is that the players SEE the dice and ROLL IT THEMSELVES(depending on the DM you play with), whereas in Wesnoth you only see a hit and a miss. I think it'd help if it shows the dice rolling and the RNG number.
This is similar to Dave's long ago postulation that the difference lies in actually rolling the dice. I don't think either theory is very valid, although I'm sure there is a small population for which it holds true. Even then I think Dave's argument holds more water as he is arguing about perceived control - though I don't believe that rollers actually themselves believe they control the outcome of a roll, even if they wish to fancy they do at the time (it's more romantic that way). Though old, the idea is somewhat relevant to this discussion I think.
IMO, d20 would also be better, too.
The issue (with regards to this thread) really is user control of probabilities. Currently the attacker has none (save magic/marksman, which doesn't extend choice very far as I mentioned previously). I agree that a d20 (opposed to the current d10) system would allow for more flexibility, which would perhaps allow for some probability control to be available to the player. I have not tried the accuracy era on 1.5.x, but I hear there is something along the lines of user-side control of CTH in it.

Anyway, this post is just to clarify since you said you missed a few posts.
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