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

From: rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:47:07 +0000

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

>>Example from Atlantis: what happens if 200 peasants attack a powerful
>>magician?  Intuitively one could argue one of 2 ways...

>As far as I'm concerned you're making my point for me.  Naturally no
>one has any valid "intuitions" about magic, since magic isn't actually
>a part of our experiences.  So this is a case where intuition fails
>and the player deserves some additional information.

>If you recast this problem to be something we do have some intuitions
>about:

>	What happens if 200 peasants attack a good swordsman?

>Then we do have some valid intuitions, namely that the swordsman may
>injure or kill a few peasants but will be swamped by numbers.  There's
>no need to publish a formula in this case.

Alright then, how about 200 peasants and 10 swordsmen?  The peasants
will only win if the first 30 of them are prepared to die.  In real
life, the leader of the swordsmen will have to figure out whether this
will be the case, based on his intuitive knowledge of psychology and the
tacit knowledge of the area that he has picked up.  There is no
equivalent of this when looking at a computer-generated turn report,
hence to have a basis for a decision you need to have access to the
rules.

Another example: suppose the game implements loss of men when sending an
army over a mountain pass.  In real life, you could *look* at a mountain
and use your intuition to make a reasonable guess at your chances.  You
can't do this in a PBM.  Putting vague waffle like "sometimes armies
incur serious losses" in the rulebook is not a substitute; it only
forces people to get wiped out a few times while accumulating enough
data to infer the actual probability.

We both agree that formulas should be published where intuition will not
suffice; my point is that intuition will essentially never suffice in a
computer-moderated game.

--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 16:59:59 +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 !)
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
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:52:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 16:59:59 +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 !)
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
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:52:00 +0000