You are wrong about randomness

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by gcolgate at 2003-09-05 01:54:06
Converted from Phorums BB System

In your article you tried to describe things as being predetermined or random. However, predetermined things can seem random.

If you know enough information about something, it is predetermined. If you do not know enough, it is random. This applies to everything from hitting a baseball to applying for a job. The MORE you know, the LESS random it gets. (I have never seen a game that allows you to learn more facts about a task and reduce the randomness, but this would work for a science fiction or realistic game).

Dice were added into wargames since not every factor on the battlefield could be accounted for. Dice are usually added into RPG's to allow a little unpredictability. Dice or other random things such as horoscopes are used in fortune telling because projecting reasons onto randomness, like imaginging images in clouds, is good for the predictive abilities of the mind.

This ability to know things is, as a matter of fact, one of the fundamental physical laws in the universe; I refer to Heisenberg's uncertiancy principle, which finds it is impossible to know both the position and the orientation of a particle at the same time.

Please do not opine any further about the nature of randomness until you are more familiar with the true meaing of randomness.
Thank you

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by allthumbs at 2003-09-05 05:47:19
Converted from Phorums BB System

"Randomness" in roleplaying is merely the concept that the results of single die rolls cannot be predetermined. If every character's chance at succeeding at a task was 50% (or 33% for 3 possible outcomes, and so on) then mechanic resolution would be "random." Even the word "unpredictable" is ill-fitting, because a 40% chance of success has inherently been predicted, and repeated attempts will trend towards that probability. So fundamentally I have to agree with this post, although I think I understand what Sandy is trying to convey.

Maybe "a function of probability" would work but that is cumbersome.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by hemflit at 2003-09-05 07:42:08
Converted from Phorums BB System


Says gcolgate:
"Please do not opine any further about the nature of randomness until you are more familiar with the true meaing of randomness. Thank you"

Please do not opine any further about the form of articles until you are more familiar with their actual meaning. Or maybe just with slightly less obnoxious ways to point out isignificant technical issues when you obviously can't find an essential complaint.

(Eg. the fact that you can't spell "uncertainty" doesn't mean you're wrong.)

(And do not take the above request too literally. Opine all you want, i won't cry.)

Cheers!

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Kathy at 2003-09-05 08:25:10
Converted from Phorums BB System

Is that anything like the True Meaning of Christmas? Anyway...

It's true that in mathematical and scientific terminology, "random" has a very specific meaning that doesn't really coincide with what Sandy was talking about.

However, "random" also has a less rigidly-defined, everyday meaning. In fact, my dictionary (which is a Merriam-Webster and not, alas, a Random House) lists this everyday meaning first: "lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern." This was the meaning I'm sure Sandy had in mind when he characterized certain kinds of events as "random." It isn't so much that their outcome is pure chance; it's more that we can't see all the factors so the outcome "lacks a definite pattern". Which fits the definition of random.

Where we get into trouble, I think, is when Sandy moves into talking about rolling dice, which is a true random event in the mathematical sense. I think this kind of blurred the distinction between the mathematical "random" and the everyday "random" and led gcolgate to believe the word was being used incorrectly. I don't think it was.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Sandy Antunes at 2003-09-05 10:16:00
Converted from Phorums BB System

Hi,

Interesting points, let me clarify my definitions. In reality, most situations are probabilistic, but are handled as if there were stochastic. And vis versa.

So I use a "random situation" as one where the ending cannot be definitively predicted despite the level of information available to the GM and players. It may have a degree of probability to assessing the likely end, however.

A "predetermined situation" is one where the ending is knowable and known. A predetermined situation where we do not have sufficient information completeness in order to make it predetermined, is de facto random. The fact that some hypothetical perfect-information-equipped point of view could exist does not change the situation where such information doesn't actually exist for the participants.

Most games assign randomness or excessive randomness (now that's an imprecise term!) to all situations, instead of having either predetermined results (which require very high resolution game worlds) or giving situations stocastic variations (i.e. the outlike is almost certainly X unless my stochastic dice come up 00). It'd be neat, but cumbersome, to have mechanics that do rolls to see whether you need to roll :)

I must disagree, however, with the statement "If you know enough
information about something, it is predetermined." As the same poster points out, the Uncertainty Principle proves the converse: even with perfect information, you cannot predetermine outcomes, only probabilities of outcomes. Fortunately, RPG modeling is way above quantum mechanics (and anyone who brings up chaos theory at this point is also working at a different, non-applicable resolution level).

If you wanted to really analyze levels of predetermination in RPGs, you'd have to account for the information flow to the player (by which they, out of character, base their in-character acts); the result would likely reveal that many characters act unwisey because they overestimate the odds due to insufficient information that would have been available to an actual person in the actual situation, i.e. in a fashion different than the character, in-character, would, i.e. not ego-related but information-related.

But again, that's cumbersome to map out, and somewhat tangential.

Cheers,
Sandy
sandy@rpg.net

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Patrick Riley at 2003-09-05 10:43:42
Converted from Phorums BB System

<I>If you know enough information about something, it is predetermined. If you do not know enough, it is random.</I>

It is a matter of perception and the use of the term "random."

Roll a die and look at the result. Cover it. Ask a friend who hadn't seen it to guess the number. To you, the value is predetermined. To your friend, it is random.

You are speeding down the highway and get noticed by a highway patrol officer and are pulled over. To you, you were randomly picked. The the cop, you were not. Even if the officer chose you instead of five other people who were speeding, there was a reason behind picking you--it is just too difficult to roll a die while holding a radar gun.

Since it is impossible for anyone, even GMs, to know everything, dice help in the decision-making process. However, just because you don't see the baseball streaking at you head, it does not mean that it will randomly hit you.

If you are going to invoke "physical laws of the universe" at least use them correctly and appropriately.

The Uncertainty Principle, which can be stated in many ways but most commonly in the from of delta-x (position) times delta-p (momentum) is greater than or on the order of h-bar (Planck's Constant, a really, really small number), only applies to quantum-scale events. Otherwise, old-fashioned, predicable and predetermined, Newtonian ballistics will determine whether or not you get beaned.

What you *really* wanted to invoke is chaos theory, where coupled and non-linear systems make the state of the entire system inherently unpredicable unless you know *everything* about the initial conditions. Or, just because you know the state now, you cannot predict what the state will be later. Here, the question is not whether or not the cop pulls you over but whether or not you and the cop were there at the same time and capable of having your encounter. In *this* instance, you can argue that a randomizer can be utilized. However, if the GM has already determined the cop would be there and you decided to speed, randomizers are not appropriate.

-- Patrick
www.xenongames.com

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by RJ Grady at 2003-09-05 21:06:21
Converted from Phorums BB System

My background in computer science gives me the word "pseudorandom." When you ask for a random number from a computer, it actually uses some kind of algorithm that is designed to produce a string of numbers that is in no way sensible or predictable. Rolling a die is also pseudo-random. The result is practically impossible to predict on a well-randomized roll, but in actually, if you could measure enough about my throw, the die, and the surface it hit, you could predict the roll one hundred percent.

Thus, any result of your own choice would be "Fated," and anything that happened without a decision on your part would be "Predetermined." Further, randomness doesn't even exist in quantum physics. Even with Uncertainty at work, you get "spooky action at a distance." There is an underlying order, we just lack the ability to predict or sensibly analyze the pattern. In mathematics, a random series is a "random pattern," which makes it no less a pattern. Any set of outcomes derives from a set of starting conditions.

Newton perhaps said it best when he said being struck by lightning was no random event, but the inevitible consequence of a certain set of circumstances.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by gcolgate at 2003-09-07 03:21:58
Converted from Phorums BB System

Imagine a game system where the players have skills which are compared to difficulty numbers. If the skill is higher than the difficulty number, the action succeeds. Difficulty numbers are sometimes random and sometimes chosen.

For example: Player 1 wants to repair his spaceship. His skill is 12. The Difficulty is represented by the throw of 3 dice. The roll is 13: the player fails. He needs a part or additional time or some other bonuis in order to get a +1 to his skill.

Player 2 now wants to try the repair, but his skill is only 8. He cannot succeed, since the difficulty of the repair is 13.

Example 2: A Player wants to jump (Skill 12) over a chasm (Difficulty 3D). However, he has time to think, so he analyzes the difficulty. The GM lets him roll 2 of the three dice ahead of time and he rolls a 1 and a 3. Now the player knows that even if he rolls a 6 on the last die, the jump is safe, so he tries it.

Example 3: An enemy in a sniper's nest has taken cover (+1D) to the difficulty and rolled a 5. This is good cover, the players are -5 to hit him until they can move to where the cover is less effective at protecting the sniper.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by gcolgate at 2003-09-07 03:25:53
Converted from Phorums BB System



Sandy Antunes wrote:
-------------------------------

I must disagree, however, with the statement "If you know enough
information about something, it is predetermined." As the same poster points out, the Uncertainty Principle proves the converse
--------------------------------------------------
Actually it does not prove the converse, it only proves that you can't know enough information about something for perfect predictions.
But because of the law of large numbers, things don't tend to teleport through walls or otherwise behave with quantum wierdness in the real physical world.

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by RJ Grady at 2003-09-07 19:06:56
Converted from Phorums BB System

Even if things did behave that way, all that is missing is an understanding of the forces that drive quantum behavior. Their apparently random behavior still behaves certain rules. If quantum behavior was completely unpredictable, we wouldn't observe the consistencies we do now. As i noted elsewhere in this thread, "spooky action at a distance" shows us that God does not create a "triangle with four sides."

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Simon Hibbs at 2003-09-10 07:53:17
Converted from Phorums BB System

Random behaviour at a quantum level is truly random. We can only predict it at the statistical level. For example semiconductors rely on the statisticaly predictable behaviour of large numbers of quantum events, but each individual event is not predictable which is why logic elements below certain sizes don't work reliably. The statistical results aren't reliable enough with a small sample.

Simon Hibbs

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Simon Hibbs at 2003-09-10 07:57:54
Converted from Phorums BB System

>There is an underlying order, we just lack the ability to predict or sensibly analyze the pattern.

I'm afraid that's just your opinion.

If you can prove it, even without describing what the underlying order is, there's a Nobel Prize for Physics waiting for you.


Simon Hibbs

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Simon Hibbs at 2003-09-10 08:06:53
Converted from Phorums BB System

>If you know enough information about something, it is predetermined. If you do not know enough, it is random. This applies to everything
>from hitting a baseball to applying for a job. The MORE you know, the LESS random it gets. (I have never seen a game that allows you to
>learn more facts about a task and reduce the randomness, but this would work for a science fiction or realistic game).

This onoly applies to you, or the player of a game. For example the result of a job application might seem random to you, but your application might actualy be assessed by a purely deterministic process of analysis.

You seem to be only considering the possition of the player in a roleplaying game. However roleplaying games also have referees who have more information than the player, in fact theoreticaly they have unlimited information since they generaly have the power to determine whatever fact about the setting they choose, as necessery.

>Dice were added into wargames since not every factor on the battlefield could be accounted for. Dice are usually added into RPG's
>to allow a little unpredictability. Dice or other random things such as horoscopes are used in fortune telling because projecting reasons
>onto randomness, like imaginging images in clouds, is good for the predictive abilities of the mind.

Actualy dice were added to remove the need for a referee. In Free Krieg Spiel, the orriginal wargame, there were no dice and all outcomes were determined by the referee.

>Please do not opine any further about the nature of randomness until
>you are more familiar with the true meaing of randomness.

I trhink you could do with learning a lot more about the roles of players and referees in roleplaying games, the history or wargaming, and common politeness, frankly.


Simon Hibbs

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by ImperiumRPG at 2003-10-09 16:45:12
Converted from Phorums BB System

Simon Hibbs wrote:
-------------------------------
I think you could do with learning a lot more about ... common politeness, frankly.
-------------------------------

Seconded.

I know bugger all about the 'true' nature of randomness, but I know well enough what someone means when they say 'random' in a roleplaying context.

Sheesh, some people...

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Piestrio at 2004-01-11 02:58:44
Converted from Phorums BB System

just to chime in....

i would like to point out that most of you are using the term "random" incorrectly.

Random is random, either something is random or it is not, THERE ARE NO VARING DEGREES OF "RANDOMNESS" (just ask a stat prof.)

when some of you say "decrese randomness" what you really mean is "increse the probability (P) of a certain event"

i know, i know, 6 of one half-dozen of the other, but, just get the nominclature right. :)