Thom Baguley:
> 2) Low roll wins (also mastery vs. non-mastery)
>
> This discussion merged with the "hard to get enhancements" discussion. This
> is unfortunate because there is a big difference between losing (say) 30%
> of simple contests and 30% of exchanges in an extended contest being minor
> losses.
Very true. This is a mild annoyance in many respects, since it often means one is thinking not just of narrative considerations when selecting between simple and extended, but of statistics
What would be nice is some even ad hoc way for adjusting for this. One hack I considered was to, say, double the numerical advantage the better party has in a simple contest, if you want to try and preserve the advantage you'd have in an extended one. Like say, I'm tryin to smite a pesky resistance of 5 with my feat of 17
I haven't done the analysis to check if doubling is even remotely on the mark, btw. For all I know, half-again or triple might be a closer 'fit'.
> I make no claim that HW precisely simulates real-world
> non-linearities, but I would claim the these quirks map reasonable neatly
> onto the kinds of real-work non-linearities that occur with increased
> expertise.
>
> Anecdotal evidence: Good fencers hate fencing beginners more than
> intermediates. Why? Beginners are unpredictable and don't react to as
> expected. This can manifest in beginners scoring hits on good fencers more
> often than intermediates, taking more time to beat and so on.
I'm familiar with the syndrome; it's not unlike what's sometimes termed in martial arts circles 'knowing just enough to get yourself in _real_ trouble'. I don't see that the non-linearities that spring to mind in HW are much like that, though. For one thing, they're cyclic, in that they recur every 20 points of the scale... Thus 'beginner's luck' only applies if you consider that it applies every time you're a 'beginner' to a new level of mastery.
Cheers,
Alex.
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