Re: OT: WRG 1925-50

On Sun, 13 Sep 1998, Alan E & Carmel J Brain wrote:

> Making %age rolls etc just "adds an air of verisimilitude to an
> otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative".	The fact is, that many
of
> the minor modifiers are drowned out in the noise of what's NOT
> simulated.

Yes, I agree. Pointless precision, and especially the illusion of
precision (66.666% seems more precise than 4/6 to the average
non-mathematician) are bad things. 
 
> By only using D6s, the precision of the random-numbers and the
accuracy
> of the chances are well-matched. If we'd just tossed coins, we
wouldn't
> have this (too little precision). If we'd used D20s, we also wouldn't
> have this (too much precision).
 
> Probably a D8 would have been a better match, but a D10 would be too
> fine-grained.
 
> As far as I can see, it's only probabilities of <5% that were ignored:
1
> in 6 ( 16.66%) is mapped to anywhere between 5-25%.

Except that gamewise, sure things are never good. Even if they represent
the <5% or >95% oddities. 

Switching to d12, as I proposed earlier, is easy. Just basically double
all the numbers -- the game works exactly as it did before. Except that
now you have the option of including a 1/12 chance for the odd shots.

E.g. 1 is always no effect, 12 is always at least neutralize (lucky
track
hit or whatever). 

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