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Hi all.
I was just wondering if what you folks think is the right amount of maths in a rule set?

Do you think a simple system with limited modifiers , is better than using multiple simple sytems without modifiers?

IMO, rule sets should use words to define the systems used,and use numbers get the comparative values to represent the interaction .
As this way seem to be more straight forward.

If all in game abilites are covered by characteristics ,(or statistics,) represnted by numbers, then all intercation can be covered by simple maths, negating the need for lenghty and complicated explanations.

Or do you folks prefer read lenthy narrative inspired descriptions of how the developers think the game should play?

No right or wrong here, just collecting opinions.

TTFN
Lanrak.

I think your question could be a lot clearer.

If I understand correctly, you want a game with a brazillion numerical stats and no special rules? That would suck.

I find that simple systems make for a much smoother and fast paced game (Space Hulk springs to mind), however this can also detract from the chance to change things up and customise your forces. A game with too few maths/options can become dull and you loose interest very quickly.

The more modifiers you have the less likely someone is to repeatedly abuse one loop hole or tactice, as the other player will soon cotton on and find a way to counter it.

When you have a game with limited modifiers, the rules/mechanics need to be spot on to avoid anyone abuseing hles in the rules

Personaly I like a mix of the two, something along the lines of Legends of the Old West.

Hi Lord Black fang.
I supose I should clarify.
Some rule sets use direct comparison of 'characteristics or stats' to determine results directly.

Eg If units have a 'size' and a 'shooting skill' characteristic given as a number.
Simply subtract the Shooting skill from the target size to determine the dice roll score needed to hit.

Eg Target size 7, Shooting skill 3, (7-3=4, ) needs 4+ to hit.

Then cover adds to the 'target size' making it harder to hit, eg light cover +1 heavy cover +2.

And if firing over half range +1 to the target size.

So the same target in the first example is over half range ,(of shooters weapons ,) and in light cover.

7+1+1= 9 .( 9-3 =6)
The firer now need to roll a 6+ to hit the target unit.

This system has a small amount of maths.(Addition and subtraction.)And follows most peoples general perception of how things work.Its harder to hit targets futhers away and targets in cover.

If a game artificialy 'fixes' the roll to hit and offer cover as an 'additional fixed dice roll'. This has no mathematics at all.Just roll a d6. But needs about another 300 + words of text to explain.

Simply using a well defined yet limited set of characteristics ,with limited modifers can cover game play in a far more striaght forward way than loads of additional 'wordy' exceptions.

(My personal preference is a maximum of 2 or3 resolutions methods, about half a dozen modifiers per interaction , and 8 characteristics.)

I agree that too many modifiers can bog a game down.And a game without any scaleable results can become disinteresting.


I hope this helps explain my question a bit better.

TTFN
Lanrak.

The more detailed and 'low level' the game the more factors you have to include.

Lots of rules include matrix tables which allow the combat factors to have been worked out in advance, avoiding tedious calculations.

GW seem to think that their players can't do any multiplication or division, and have difficulty tallying numbers larger than 1.

As little as possible.

Chess, Kings Table, Chequers etc all require very little, if any real mathematical prowess beyond counting moves in advance for both sides.

Fantasy and 40k don't use a great deal beyond addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. You put too much in, and the number crunching becomes the game rather than the playing itself, if that makes sense?

Now of course, if a game has applied mathematics, such as using a bit of Pythagoras Theorem when guessing ranges for Cannons etc is fine, as the option is there for the player to apply it or not. But when it becomes an integral part of the game, I reckon I'd find it fairly annoying.

You will never have a balanced, point-based game. The more options you have, the more powerful the best option becomes, and, directly, the worse the the worst option becomes. I'm a fan of "everything has the same stats, EXCEPT..." What I mean by that, is everything works the same way, except flying guys ignore obstacles, or guys with long legs can run faster. At most one or two "excepts" that are positive for an individual piece, and maybe a single negative one. (Note that the negative should never be to make up for a good positive, because players will ALWAYS minimize the impact of the negative to begin with.) On top of that I also like one to four levels of "power," (or point cost) because I believe a 3 or 4 point-max system is still possible to balance. It should be obvious whether a piece should cost 1, 2, 3, or 4 points. This helps to minimize the overpowering effect commonly seen in point-based games, though it's still there in even the tiniest bit. I also believe a game should be equation-based to begin with, so that there is inherit balance to start. Once you have a basis, THEN go crazy with adding rules and junk to make it even out. A special rule is only as good as how often the player gets to use it. Trying to make a rule really powerful buy barely applicable is a bad idea (My guy moves 4x faster and can attack free in water! But only one scenario has water...). Hope that provides some insight to my game-design-loving mind


Edit: Totally didn't answer the question. The math should be done by the game designer in advance. The player should deal with the math either before the game in terms of customization or not at all. The game play should be simple resolution with minor modifiers, enough to fit on a single chart.

Use Ockham's Razor.

Hi Nuglitch.
Ockhams Razor is what exactly?
Something to optimize function to instruction ratios?

Elaborate please!

TTFN
Lanrak.

Hey, I'm still not sure if I understand correctly... you're asking whether it's better to have one complicated die roll or two simple die rolls? I don't think either is inherently better. It depends on the detail level of the game, the speed of gameplay you're going for, the importance of luck... etc.

However, I would challenge your assumption that one complicated mechanic is easier to explain than several simple mechanics. Independent die rolls are also easier to predict and balance, and possibly fairer.

To use your own example, a separate cover save always gives you the same odds of saving. The effect of a cover modifier to the attack roll is different depending on the original target number.

If the attacker only hits on 5+ and then gets a -1 modifier because of cover, his chance of hitting is halved - an equivalent of a 4+ cover save if we're using D6. The same -1 modifier only causes a 25% loss of accuracy for someone who normally hits on 3+.

Hi,
Lord Black fang.
I appear to be making a total mess of explaining this.

Some games use simple maths to reduce the amount of 'written rules'. Mainly by direct comparison of stats,and or a few modifiers.

Other games seem to have a design brief to avoid all 'in game player calculation' at all costs.

Some cover this very well with variable succes rates based on tables 'degrees of sucess' from multiple dice rolls.(THW have a range of games based on thier own system that works realy well.IMO.)

Yet some seem to be tied to a system of sequential/optional dice rolls that have yes/no results.This often leads to massive abstraction of percived action.
As they have little proportionalism .And therfore have lots of explanations to describe the abstract interaction.

I suppose the real difference is the number of resolution methods.
Most of the games that have fewer resolution methods seem to be more intuitive.
And the simplest resolutions seem to be based on direct comparisons.
Direct comparisons generaly use simple mathematics.

Any clearer?
(Ps Thanks for the link Nurglitch.)

TTFN
Lanrak.

Ockham's razor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

You want to know a game with way to much math, the old Star Fleet Battles. I sware that they needed to offer a masters course in college just to get a basic grasp of the rules.

I perfer a simple game that is stright forward on it's workings.

Let's look at a few combat resolution mechanisms. I’ll use made up figures as I can’t remember all the real factors.

OGRE
The combined attack strength total of all units shooting at a single target are compared with the target's defence rating and a ratio is derived.

Example: Three heavy tanks with a total of Atk 12 shoot at a GEV with a defence strength of 3. The combat ratio is 12/3 = 4:1.

You look up the 4:1 odds on the combat resolution table, roll a D6 and read off the result which is expressed as Destroyed, Stunned or No Effect.

The same mechanism was widely used in Avalon Hill type wargames and also allows for various modifiers to the die roll, the CRT column or the Atk and Def factors.


Stars 'n' Bars

The ‘To Hit’ percentage of the shooting unit is read off the quality/range table and modified by tactical factor. The resulting percentage is multiplied by the number of figures shooting. The percentage dice are rolled to find the number of figures hit.

Example:

A regiment of 9 Union veteran infantry open fire at close range on the flank of a Confederate line. The basic ‘To hit’ is 16% (close range, veteran, Springfield rifle) X2 for flanking fire = 32%. Nine figures firing means your final ‘To Hit’ is 32 x 9 = 288%. Two enemy figures are removed and the Union player rolls his dice for an 88% chance to remove a third.


De Bellis Antiquitatis

A unit of Roman legionaries fights a Macedonian pike block. The factor for Blades (the Romans) is 5, the factor for the Pikes is 3 + 1 for a supporting element behind them. The Roman player rolls a 6 and the Macedonian rolls a 4. 6+5=11, 4+4=8.

The Romans scored higher so the Pikes are pushed back and become disordered. If beaten again while disordered, they will be destroyed.


Out of these three mechanisms, the Stars N Bars is the most mentally demanding. In its favour it only needs a single die roll to achieve a result once the factors have been calculated. It also allows for multiple tactical factors to be included and allows for units to suffer a wide range of results.

OGRE requires some mental arithmetic and achieves a result on a single roll. Its simplicity is reflected in the small range of results obtained.

DBA relies not only on basic versus rolling plus some factors, but also on a table giving the combat results of different troop types. For example, it is almost impossible to destroy light cavalry units as they just run away from anyone strong enough to beat them. This gives it more flexibility than it appears to have.

Lanrak:

You're welcome. After seeing how Killkrazy brought it up, I felt that I had to add it myself.

Something to point out is that there's more to mathematics than arithmetic.

What I think you're actually asking is how many operations are appropriate to complete a game, or cyclical iteration (turn) of a game.

A turn that involved a selection process of three "if...then..." statements is more complex than a selection process involving one conditional requiring three disjunct sums to be totaled.

If w+x or x+y or w+y then z > [If[if[if w then x]then y] then z]

Something I've noticed is that gamers will perform complex operations without complain so long as you parse them properly, and align each operation with some relevant different in the game. A seven-operation calculation to decide whether a model is removed from the game will erk people, unless each of those seven steps depends on an element on the board.

I think one of the big problems of game design, particularly wargame design, is that people get this great idea for a universal system to represent everything, but it tends to be long on the process of implementation and short on the game. I think it's better to take a less formalist approach and instead start from the position of what sort of decisions do you want players to make, and what you want to influence those decisions.

In the Prisoner's Dilemma, for example, the decision that the designer wanted people to make was simple: whether to co-operate or defect, and what influenced the decision was whether one's opponent decided to co-operate or defect, and a particular form of pay-off table that put the outcome of any decision to co-operate at a midpoint between the outcome of any decision to defect.

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a very simple game which gets more interesting as you add to its environment (and change the game to a degree), so its Nash Equilibrium changes depending on whether it's played singly or multiple rounds, and in the case of the latter whether there's a set number of rounds or a variable number of rounds.

So it's a useful tool for analyzing the sort of decision-making operations that game-players might be called upon to make, and it's also a useful tool for calibrating the operations required to implement a game (being a simplified version of Rock-Scissors-Paper). It's also useful for showing how all games are essentially mathematical, specific structures of decisions, operations, and conditions whose outcome depends on the interactions of the players.

Hi Nurglitch.
I think you are right.
I realy am asking about the 'amount of operations' required to cover the 'game play'.

And the way the operations are structured in the rule set, often determines how 'intuitive' they are percieved to be.

Its just the games I felt were more intuitive , tended to have logical progression ,and usualy were quite sound 'mathmaticaly '.(Probably the wrong word.)

And the games I found 'heavy going' , seemed to have far to many sequential conditional aspects in the text of the rules.
All the detail was in the description of how the rules work, not in using the rules to play the game.

Some times I fail to post my thoughts clearly.Its nice to have someone to help me understand what I meant to type!

Thanks .
Lanrak.