The yin and yang of sparring/training now

[maxid]

Can I add a #6 option here?

#6: At the Summit of Corpse Mountain:

Proceeding to Journeyman takes precisely the same time and amount of effort as it does now. Advancement past Journeyman is impossible or very slow unless specific criteria are met. Any time you receive a skill up tick in a combat skill, the game provides you a very small amount of skill advancement such that it would take a very long time to ever get to master, and then it stores the tick in a 'latent' variable. If the criteria are met, then the stored tick drops and you get a larger boost of experience more similar to a normal tick. The criteria could be anything in this scenario but I prefer them to be things that can only be accomplished with major risk to your character's life -- dealing at least 40hp of damage to a creature with a total hitpoints > 200hp, receiving or dealing damage in excess of 25hp from a non-sparring weapon in a a single hit from/to a humanoid enemy, being struck with a non-training arrow, ect.

I prefer this idea because it means you can get 'good' by playing it safe. But to become GREAT, you have to take risks, participate in challenging contests and survive. The greatest warriors would have to go to war rather than sit cloistered in a sparring hall to achieve greatness. You have to cut your teeth on the edge of battle and learn from it to become a true monster. And since fighting creatures with > 200hp (mekillots and others) or being in situations where some other player is dropping 30hp crits with a serrated sword or a gith squad is peppering you with arrows are very lethal events that kill people with good reliability, people who achieve mastery become rare because many people die. For every grizzled veteran who can kill you with a twist of his wrist, you know there were five more who died on the climb. Elites are elite, rare, and command respect rather than simply being elite by the onus of time and hiding from risk of death.

Ah yes, the Musashi method.  I'm a fan.

[Jihelu]

Musashi only fought in like 1 war and spent the rest of his time 1v10ing people/solo dueling (and sometimes cheating)

It's the Arm Special. Musashi is an Armer.

[Namino]

Ultimately I think it'd be cool when so and so walks into the Sparring Hall and slaps the shit out of everyone 3v1 you know he got that good because he rode the lightning instead of laid down in a field with turaal. It's a lot more admirable to be strong in a game where strength comes at enormous risks.

[Cerelum]

Ultimately I think it'd be cool when so and so walks into the Sparring Hall and slaps the shit out of everyone 3v1 you know he got that good because he rode the lightning instead of laid down in a field with turaal. It's a lot more admirable to be strong in a game where strength comes at enormous risks.

So wait, Turaal aren't acceptable training partners?  While carrying logs from the grey forest?

[Halcyon]

Ultimately I think it'd be cool when so and so walks into the Sparring Hall and slaps the shit out of everyone 3v1 you know he got that good because he rode the lightning instead of laid down in a field with turaal. It's a lot more admirable to be strong in a game where strength comes at enormous risks.

This idea only works the narrative assumes the "hero" wins.   When playing in a game like Arm with a world of static threat levels, an enormous risk is not a controlled CR+3 over the party average. 

One of my Bynners was on a ride returning from the canyon of wastes at least more than a year ago.   A staff member was dropping six to eight spiders on us a time.    We were puffed up and happy, making many globs of green gelatinous meat.   Then Albie (our reliable half giant) had to log out suddenly for a phone call.   The next wave of over twelve spiders smashed the group apart, separated us, killed a couple runners, and had the Troopers below 20 hp each when Albie logged back in.

Staff members dont exercise alot of fine control, for any number of reasons.  Show me a long lived pc, and I'll bet they avoided "enormous risks" for a good long while.

[Namino]

Ultimately I think it'd be cool when so and so walks into the Sparring Hall and slaps the shit out of everyone 3v1 you know he got that good because he rode the lightning instead of laid down in a field with turaal. It's a lot more admirable to be strong in a game where strength comes at enormous risks.

This idea only works the narrative assumes the "hero" wins.   

The narrative relies 100% on the hero losing. And losing a lot. That's the point. Fifty heroes go out, one comes back. That's what makes them the top 2% and gives their high level of skill significance.

[Riev]

Ultimately I think it'd be cool when so and so walks into the Sparring Hall and slaps the shit out of everyone 3v1 you know he got that good because he rode the lightning instead of laid down in a field with turaal. It's a lot more admirable to be strong in a game where strength comes at enormous risks.

This idea only works the narrative assumes the "hero" wins.   When playing in a game like Arm with a world of static threat levels, an enormous risk is not a controlled CR+3 over the party average. 

One of my Bynners was on a ride returning from the canyon of wastes at least more than a year ago.   A staff member was dropping six to eight spiders on us a time.    We were puffed up and happy, making many globs of green gelatinous meat.   Then Albie (our reliable half giant) had to log out suddenly for a phone call.   The next wave of over twelve spiders smashed the group apart, separated us, killed a couple runners, and had the Troopers below 20 hp each when Albie logged back in.

Staff members dont exercise alot of fine control, for any number of reasons.  Show me a long lived pc, and I'll bet they avoided "enormous risks" for a good long while.

In this specific situation, I can imagine it is hard to come up with an "appropriate challenge" when you have Albie on your side, vs when you don't. Its not about not exercising control, its that "3 spiders" doesn't equal a static challenge rating, and they may have already spawned those creatures before the Big Good PC had to leave.

Admittedly, its being the one that survives that makes you good, but often its the cowards that survive. So I don't think the narrative of "only heroes return" fits the spirit of the discussion.

[Eyeball]

Ultimately I think it'd be cool when so and so walks into the Sparring Hall and slaps the shit out of everyone 3v1 you know he got that good because he rode the lightning instead of laid down in a field with turaal. It's a lot more admirable to be strong in a game where strength comes at enormous risks.

This idea only works the narrative assumes the "hero" wins.   

The narrative relies 100% on the hero losing. And losing a lot. That's the point. Fifty heroes go out, one comes back. That's what makes them the top 2% and gives their high level of skill significance.

People here don't seem to understand probability. How do you define risk? A 2% chance of dying seems pretty low risk, but the character will have to go out thousands of times to grind up far enough to really stand out. Even a thousand "risks" at that low probability means the odds of survival are 1 in 594 million or so. No one will ever stand out if that's what is required.

[Namino]

The probability of death isn't quantifiable like that in a game like Armageddon. It's related to how people handle the situation and limit their exposure and make smart plays while participating in potentially lethal exchanges. You can't do compounded probabilities (ie, your example of .98 ^ 1,000) on something without an actual probability. You can hunt a Mekillot in a way that maximizes your odds of success or maximizes your odds of failure. But let's say that even after everything is done, out of every character who attempts it, 1 out of every 1,000 achieves <master> in a skill and 999 ends up a corpse.

That's good. More character turnover, more props to that one guy.

[Midori]

...

Probability nut here:

If the character takes even a little risk each time, it will compound and they'll be dead.

If a character figures out how to eliminate risk, the system isn't working as intended.

Something needs to change, right?

[Namino]

Not in this case, Midori (fellow probability nut). That compounded probability is only true for probability that is held relatively static. Let's say I hunt a mekillot in such a way that I have a 2% chance of death. On average, I will be dead in 50 mekillots. My probability of survivng 1 000 mekillots to master is 1.68296736E−7 percent. So not good.

Let's assume if I limit my exposure as much as possible and bias everything in my favor so that my probability of death is .01 percent. Now my probability of survivng in 1000 trials is 90.48328936 percent. So pretty fuckin likely.

So why are neither of these real? Because I'm human and fallible. Some days I'll hunt methodically and carefully (99.99 percent) and other days I'll get lazy or tired or surprised (98 percent). The real probability of death is a composition not of a static percent but rather a range of percents that I as a hunter have control over based on how I go about hunting. If I end up throwing in too many risky hunts, I markedly decrease my survival likelihood, but that occurence isn't a randomly drawn distribution.

[Brokkr]

Encounters are a series of events.  They can compound upwards or downwards, depending on the event (meaning you have to use negative percentages for events that increase your likelihood of survival).  At any point during the encounter, you would then have a probability for surviving the rest of the encounter.  Other than fringe cases, each encounter would leave you at 100% or 0% of surviving the event.

So completely possible to achieve very high rates of possibility of death at specific points in time, while the overall survive rate isn't impossible.

[Namino]

Encounters are a series of events.  They can compound upwards or downwards, depending on the event (meaning you have to use negative percentages for events that increase your likelihood of survival)

Yes, this. You can fight an enemy and do dumb shit and negatively bias your outcome or you can do smart shit and positively bias it. The range of probabilities for your series of 1,000 fights is contextual to the choices you're making in the moment as a player. That's why doing compounded probabilities here is inappropriate because it's treating a fight like a coin flip or a dice roll when it isn't.

[Synthesis]

The way combat works...every PC trying to attain master would die if they had to go out and fight a mekillot to skill up.  With Giuseppe...I had 3 weapon skills mastered, master shield use, easily the most overall-skilled fighter I ever had...defense was amazing...sword/shield/parry all mastered, extremely good agility.  One time, I went out sword and shield (his primary fighting style) and I got knocked down to 2hp by a fucking SCRAB with two back-to-back freak neck shots.

In general, big-game hunting wasn't something I would ever do solo even with his skills already at master.  Mekillots can nearly one-shot you with a lousy foot hit.  If they hit your head or neck as a human, you're fucking dead instantly.  With human agility, everything tougher than about a tembo has the ability to fuck your ass up if RNGeezus gives it good agility, good strength, and a couple of good rolls.

The idea isn't to set the bar at 1-in-a-million.  5% or so is probably good enough.

[Cerelum]

Now, I have only had a few good combat characters, and those have always been against wildlife.

It almost seems to me that there is a hidden talent for killing critters versus humans.

I can walk out on a trained outdoors guy and kill spiders all day long.  But let me try and fight a gith and it's a whole different story.

I know they will probably neither confirm nor deny, but it almost feels like the more you fight a certain critter, the better you get.  I can bulldoze through most average wildlife, but run into something crazy and it wrecks me.

[Synthesis]

Now, I have only had a few good combat characters, and those have always been against wildlife.

It almost seems to me that there is a hidden talent for killing critters versus humans.

I can walk out on a trained outdoors guy and kill spiders all day long.  But let me try and fight a gith and it's a whole different story.

I know they will probably neither confirm nor deny, but it almost feels like the more you fight a certain critter, the better you get.  I can bulldoze through most average wildlife, but run into something crazy and it wrecks me.

Depends on which gith you're fighting. There are some out there that are top-tier, and if you fight them straight-up with a human...it's a 50-50 shot even if you're a maxed fighter.

[Namino]

Particularly with their scripts, meks would be too dangerous, yes. They're currently just the scarecrow I'm using to theory craft how the system would work as most people just know them as big scary monster rather than have an understanding of the mechanics of the actual npc.

The actual system wouldn't be mek locked - advancement 'triggering' would be distributed to events that could happen in a wider variety of fights, so long as the fight is a serious one in nature.

[Eyeball]

The idea is to create a list of possible events and encounters that occasionally trigger under certain conditions. Small chance at a given time, small chance that the boot event is picked from the list when it does happen. Not enough so that everyone is cynically ready for it. And it's just an example of the wide range of events that could be put in.

Or it could even be a stack of events instead of a list. The top of the stack is picked to happen, then it's removed from the stack. Eventually the stack is empty, except that more events can be added by the staff at their leisure.

Should be noted that this idea could help make the world less static for off-peakers too.

[maxid]

It's difficult to argue that scripted events make the world /less/ static in my opinion.  Especially ones where you're just handed a sudden random loss because you forgot to 'remove boots' for the 2 rooms where there's a 1/500 chance to lose them.

[Eyeball]

It's difficult to argue that scripted events make the world /less/ static in my opinion.  Especially ones where you're just handed a sudden random loss because you forgot to 'remove boots' for the 2 rooms where there's a 1/500 chance to lose them.

Yes, that's right, fixate on the boots example because nothing else could be possibly done. Like having NPCs appear or a scroll with a picture on it appear or many other things. No, only the boot event could be done.

Right now, everyone knows what to expect when they enter an area. The exceptions are (1) when manual staff intervention occurs, and (2) when PC intervention occurs.

Having triggered events stacked means PCs could encounter unexpected events in the absence of (1) and (2). So, yes, it makes the world less static.

[Brokkr]

If folks think getting their boots yanked off is something unique, apparently they don't know what to expect.

[maxid]

It's difficult to argue that scripted events make the world /less/ static in my opinion.  Especially ones where you're just handed a sudden random loss because you forgot to 'remove boots' for the 2 rooms where there's a 1/500 chance to lose them.

Yes, that's right, fixate on the boots example because nothing else could be possibly done. Like having NPCs appear or a scroll with a picture on it appear or many other things. No, only the boot event could be done.

Right now, everyone knows what to expect when they enter an area. The exceptions are (1) when manual staff intervention occurs, and (2) when PC intervention occurs.

Having triggered events stacked means PCs could encounter unexpected events in the absence of (1) and (2). So, yes, it makes the world less static.

Having a list of pre-configured events is as static with slightly more parameters is my point.  You'd do more by adding more echoes to rooms to play off of.

[Namino]

Ahem

IS IT YIN OR YING, YOU GUYS ARE DRIVING ME INSANE.

Edit for clarity: Eyeball started it as yin and then Mansa repaired it in his reply to be ying and since then we've been oscillating the name of the thread back and forth depending on who is quoting who.

[Eyeball]

Ahem

IS IT YIN OR YING, YOU GUYS ARE DRIVING ME INSANE.

Edit for clarity: Eyeball started it as yin and then Mansa repaired it in his reply to be ying and since then we've been oscillating the name of the thread back and forth depending on who is quoting who.

It's "yin and yang". I started with "ying and yang", then corrected the title later.

[Eyeball]

If folks think getting their boots yanked off is something unique, apparently they don't know what to expect.

I'm sure the fifteen or so staff members could figure out something more original to add in then.