Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)

From: srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)

Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1993 16:27:30 +0000

rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace) writes:
>Ah, no.  In real life, the leader will be fairly sure what the outcome
>will be, under a given set of circumstances (e.g. if he knows his own
>troops well, knows what the opposition is like, and knows the conditions
>he will be fighting under).  The uncertainty in real life generally
>comes from things like not knowing the capability of one's enemy, or
>what he is going to do next.

Nonsense.  If this were all that real life involved, sports (for
example) would be utterly predictable.  The fact is, even knowing
exactly the composition of a team, having watched them for an entire
regular season, it is still difficult to accurately predict what the
outcome of a playoff game will be.  The best handicappers in the world
(the Las Vegas sports lines) add a 10% vigorish to sports betting for
precisely this reason.

There aren't any "formulas" in real life, and there shouldn't be in
games.  The only reason that (world simulation) games as we know them
have the resolution methods explicit is because previous to the advent
of the computer, there wasn't any reasonable way to implement an
impartial third-person judge.  And in fact, where it has been
economically reasonable to do so (i.e., in military training games),
third-party judges have always been used, and the participants have
not been provided with the "formulas".

Giving the participants resolution formulas doesn't model anything in
the real world nor anything that is particularly interesting to the
majority of game players.

>Making the formulas unavailable produces the result that even the
>most well informed commander will have only vague guesses to base his
>decisions on, and unless one has a lot of experience in the game...

What you're saying is that in a game that doesn't give you exact
formulas, you have to have experience to be expert.  Or you can try to
learn at the foot of someone who has that experience.  Sounds just
like real life to me.  These types of games aren't meant to be math
puzzles; they're meant to be experience-exploration-development
puzzles.

I've only heard two reasonable arguments for formulas so far.  The
first is that they prevent people from suffering a catastrophic loss
because they misunderstood the game documentation.  The second is that
having hidden game mechanisms favors people with experience in the
game and may make the game unplayable for newbies.

In both cases, publishing the game formula is a easy but bad
solution.  In the first case, the documentation should be improved.
In the second case, other mechanisms should exist for protecting the
newbie player (or players shouldn't be allowed to join mid-stream).

-- Scott T.

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:52:00 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 16:59:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:47:07 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 20:04:50 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:00:33 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
ulim@coli.uni-sb.de (Ulrich Mayring)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:41:26 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:50:14 +0000
PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@rt.com (Rich Skrenta)
Sat, 19 Jun 1993 18:12:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:13:47 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:52:00 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 16:59:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:47:07 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 20:04:50 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:00:33 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
ulim@coli.uni-sb.de (Ulrich Mayring)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:41:26 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:50:14 +0000
PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@rt.com (Rich Skrenta)
Sat, 19 Jun 1993 18:12:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Thu, 24 Jun 1993 23:13:47 +0000