On the subject of rolling dice

[Irgendwer]

Personally I like the idea a lot.  I think the discussion got a little off-track because the example was attacking.  But if an RPer wanted to decide randomly whether they liked someone or disliked someone or were nice or not nice to someone, then they could use this feature.  How about the following for a way to make it work?

<another player begs for money>
/try 98 /me gives you a valuable weapon.  /say Go away loser!

Then the command rolls a 100-sided dice and plays the first command if higher than the number specified (98) or the second command otherwise.

The player who issues this command would see what the outcome was and could use the regular game to give the beggar his weapon if that is what he sees happen.

Would that work?  I think it would be quite easy to implement.

It would neither work nor would it be easy to implement, let alone useful.

• From a programmers point of view, it means parsing a free form string. Thats only easy, when "/" is not allowed as part of the message.
• It will not work particularly well from the users persepective, because s/he has to type both alternatives, even though only one will be shown.
• It's not useful in general, because it is too unflexible: What about tripple or quad choices? Different commands (see parsing problem above)? Displaying the rolled value (/try 98 /me gives you %x Tria)? Basing the numeric argument of /try on on something related (e.g. /try target_charisma /me is flattered /me is disgusted).

My bet is, that the /try command would get so complex, that people will just silently use /roll (or real world dice) to make their decission.

[Illysia]

If no one want to put that kind of effort into it then they will probably just not bother at all. They will choose without a roll too. This is only useful for someone who wants to go a little further than usual.

[khoridor]

The parsing is only as difficult as the required syntax is complex (no more than 2 choices so far, no nested commands either). Besides, that concerns only the devs, if a feature request is actually done. As far as Illysia is concerned, the feature itself is relevant.

Illysia, maybe you should come with more syntax examples of how you would use it, to show how simple (or not) you really want it. Some people already told that they would have a use for it. And those who wouldn't (including me) can still participate in helping. As long as the devs will understand your request (faster than we did, eh eh), that's all that matters.

[Bamko]

Before I was accused of not understanding Zanzibar's summary of this, I said:

 "Zanzibar, thanks for deciphering it, but I am still unclear whether it would always be 50/50 or what.  if so maybe they mean something like /try like "/try to throw a pie at baughb" which woudl show up as "Bamko tries to throw a pie at Baughb but fails (or and hits him)?  I would want a percentage.  but it would still meet resistance I predict, from those I mentioned above.  (I should get a bonus for agility, I was watching, I cast defensive wind, I declare my dodge on you!) but at least I think I understand the proposal now.  "  Also note my "predictions" seem to be bearing out in the posts after that post. 

So, as I understand it, (and this is my opinion of what such a mechanic would mean to ME, so please,  do not imply I am insulting anyone...  ) this would enble the roll of a dice to RP my character.  No thanks.  If someone were to toss a pie at me, I would make a quick assessment, how far away, am I paying attention, did I not notice their statement right away (not paying attention) and RP accordionly.  (Pie hits Bamko right in the ear.... <return> /me jumps back and whips off helm, cleaning pie out of ear <return> /say What in the name of Talad was THAT for?!?!? But if having an argument across the plaza and it is thrown while watching them from 20 yards away?  different kind of outcome.  This would take the RP out of all of these situations. (again, my opinion.)

Maybe that is the problem, too many people are NOT doing that?

So: WHY do you think we need this?  If I were to answer that, from what I have read,  I would say EITHER you have an issue with others godmodding, OR you do not want to feel bad for always making the pie hit (or not hit) you or others.

and that brings up other issues. 

We have /roll X Y already.  but to make it, without modifiers, or even having you decide what the modifers are, would be godmodding AND automatied RP, IMO,


/try 99 steal your short sword of seduction 01 fail <would be about as bad as > /me sneaks up to Baughb and slides his short sword of seduction out of his pack and runs away unseen.


Um, no thanks.  I would rather use my "overcomplicated system where all parties agree on the modifers rather than making it worse by letting the godmoders have a tool to abuse.
Note, I am NOT saying YOU are a godmodder, I am saying godmodders would abuse it.  Clear enough? 

I made an edit on http://www.yliakum.com/index.php?topic=13.0 I think that is even clearer, (at the top of it)  but meh, can not please all of the people all of the time, eh?  I am not going to remove the complicated stuff, because most people I talk with eventually make the system to be complicated enough to grasp the majority of factors that have an effect.  a 50/50 system of catch  vs success for picking pockets would not last long.  and if mechanics enforced, Imagine the uproar.  Many people talked with me about that complicated system, making it, yes, more complicated.  (and perhaps harder to read, go ahead someone , reply to it with YOUR system, if better, we all can use it.  )

And finally, I do not see how this would be "going a little further than usual" (I would hazzard my RP, as per the post, went a lot further than "usual" for most people, but sometimes it is better just to wing it and play fair, leaving out the complications, but for important things, nice to have die rolls <as in dice, not death>).  Now if they wanted to make a specific implementation for throwing pies, (or any object) they could modify the combat code perhaps, add in range and other factors.  But I would they rather spend their time on missle weapons first. 

[Illysia]

khoridor: For me I think /try <chance number> <one option> (And then fail indicator[i.e. but fails] would appear if you didn't make it) would be a nice enough start so:

/Illysia /try 50 /me tickles Khoridor's side to make him laugh
>Illysia tickles Khoridor's side to make him laugh
>Illysia tickles Khoridor's side to make him laugh but fails
(keep in mind that whenever what you do affects someone else you should probably ask unless you already know them pretty well and you know they wouldn't mind)

/Illysia /try 90 /me walks along and nearly trips
>Illysia walks along and nearly trips
>Illysia walks along and nearly trips but doesn't

/Illysia /try 70 /me tosses an apple to Khoridor
>Illysia tosses an apple to Khoridor
>Illysia tosses an apple to Khoridor but doesn't succeed

But there are times when a second option would work much better.

/Illysia /try 60 /me nearly sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth /me sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth
(This is like I'm sick)
>Illysia nearly sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth
>Illysia sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth


Bamko: That is nice, if you don't want to use it then don't. Also note:

It....can't be used in connection with complex actions....

Pickpocketed is too loaded an issue to use this command.

[Prolix]

Sounds to me like this boils down to not always wanting to decide what random thing your character does. I would suggest it might be better to have the tool check a predefined list saved on/by the user machine. An ordered list, perhaps, so that instead of specifying in the call to the function specific outcomes you would call, for example, 'rand action#' where action# is a number on the list. It could be further refined so that you could specify actiontype as well. This would allow you to type "rand #," "rand type" or just "rand." "Rand" would pick a random action from the list, "rand type" would pick a random action of a particular type from the list and "rand #" would pick the specific action. Further you could have it look to see if a specific probability is given as a percentage, "rand # x%." 

[zanzibar]

Sounds to me like this boils down to not always wanting to decide what random thing your character does. I would suggest it might be better to have the tool check a predefined list saved on/by the user machine. An ordered list, perhaps, so that instead of specifying in the call to the function specific outcomes you would call, for example, 'rand action#' where action# is a number on the list. It could be further refined so that you could specify actiontype as well. This would allow you to type "rand #," "rand type" or just "rand." "Rand" would pick a random action from the list, "rand type" would pick a random action of a particular type from the list and "rand #" would pick the specific action. Further you could have it look to see if a specific probability is given as a percentage, "rand # x%." 

Do you think this is a realistic solution for average players?

Either way, that's more complicated than simply sending yourself a tell with the /roll command, or flipping a coin in real life.

[Prolix]

I don't think average players will use it much regardless of how it might be implemented.  Then again I'm not much for fancy roleplaying. It would, however, lend itself to shortcuts. Actually I could see how someone might want to have some kind of script that would run such a tool every now and again to, say, produce a facial tic or some other characteristic eccentricity at random intervals without having to actually do them manually.

[khoridor]

Ok, so what I see from the examples is that it's not either the success or failure text which is always displayed. The success/attempt text always appear, and the failure text is added in case of failure. That indeed makes thee typing shorter.

And the example

/Illysia /try 60 /me nearly sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth /me sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth
(This is like I'm sick)
>Illysia nearly sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth
>Illysia sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth

shows that the failure text would rather be anywhere in the attempt text. So a clear enclosing seems needed for and only for the failure text, such as
        /try 60 /me {nearly} sneezes faster than she can cover her mouth

That keeps the syntax pretty simple.
       /try xx attempt_command {failure_text}
where:
- xx is optional and default to 50 percent
- attempt_command always shows, and is a standard /me or /my command.
- failure text can be anywhere after, before or inside attempt_command, and, if absent, is defaulted to "but fails" at the end.

( I used the {} delimiters as an example, not as a recommendation. )
Am I missing something?

[zanzibar]

I don't think average players will use it much regardless of how it might be implemented.  Then again I'm not much for fancy roleplaying. It would, however, lend itself to shortcuts. Actually I could see how someone might want to have some kind of script that would run such a tool every now and again to, say, produce a facial tic or some other characteristic eccentricity at random intervals without having to actually do them manually.

It would be manual since you would have to press the hotkey for the shortcut.  You would have to write the shortcut; a shortcut mechanism doesn't mean you don't need to understand the syntax of the command, unless someone else sends you a shortcut file to copy into your PlaneShift directory.  By average player, I of course meant from a technical perspective, not an RP perspective.  And to have something like a facial tic at truly random moments, you would have to be running some kind of bot.

I'm just not sure what the point is in working out the details of an overcomplicated solution when a simpler solution with the same effect has already been proposed.  Then again it's also possible that I misunderstood your proposal, which is always possible.

[Prolix]

My suggestion was to make it as simple as possible for the end user to use at will, not necessarily to set up, though. Some people type very fast but I do not so the fewer characters I have to type to invoke such a thing the better I like it. I suppose it would slide down an undesirable slope to make it random over a duration, you wouldn't wan to allow people to use it to do any action that was already implemented in the game mechanics such as /dig. Restricting it to 'emotes' might be difficult.

[Mordraugion]

Personal opinion, one should use your knowledge of your character to roleplay, not use random dice rolls to decide if your going to sneeeze or like/dislike someone.
All other occasions where people feel inclined to use dice rolls, combat etc. will be handled by the game mechs using various formulae evaluating skill levels and stats plus luck to decide outcomes.

[zanzibar]

My suggestion was to make it as simple as possible for the end user to use at will, not necessarily to set up, though. Some people type very fast but I do not so the fewer characters I have to type to invoke such a thing the better I like it. I suppose it would slide down an undesirable slope to make it random over a duration, you wouldn't wan to allow people to use it to do any action that was already implemented in the game mechanics such as /dig. Restricting it to 'emotes' might be difficult.

I would say that if it's very difficult to setup, then it's not easy to use.  Your way has more options of course.

Personal opinion, one should use your knowledge of your character to roleplay, not use random dice rolls to decide if your going to sneeeze or like/dislike someone.
All other occasions where people feel inclined to use dice rolls, combat etc. will be handled by the game mechs using various formulae evaluating skill levels and stats plus luck to decide outcomes.

There's a difference between sneezing by chance and liking someone by chance.  Whether or not you sneeze, fall, hit a target with a pie, etcetera are all subject to chance.  Something like liking someone or joining a religion are in a different category since they're based on personality and experience.

Ideally, pies will be objects that one can use as projectiles, sneezes will be determined by a formula that takes into account the levels of dust and pollen in your location compared to your endurance and charisma stats, and the probability of tripping at any point will be determined by a formula that takes into account your agility stat and the terrain.  But until such things are implemented....

[Vengeance]

Well I think you guys have tortured the idea to death enough that it will never be implemented. 

I guess you'll have to make do with just typing out what you do.

[zanzibar]

I'm sure you're welcomed to pretend little happened after post 36.