>Just the $.02 of a die hard (pun intended) wargamer: note that any system
>that requires you to roll MORE dice will tend to be decided most likely
>by the modifiers. If a system requires FEWER dice it's more decided by
>luck.
>Ergo, I've always seen the obviousness of the philosophy of the extended
>contest put forth on the list. Characters with a higher skill to start
>would always want to minimum bid the situation (to increase the number of
>rolls in a given contest) while low-skill are much better served by the
>hail-mary bidding. I think it makes sense.
The trouble is, this is only true in isolation. The guy who thinks he's going to win anyway should always bid reasonably high - bidding all his points on a single roll is fairly stupid, but there is no point to his mind of bidding one point at a time. He just wants to get it over with fairly quickly.
However, the guy who is going to lose should nearly always bid 1. Why? Because that way he stays in the contest longer, vastly increasing the chances that someone else will come and rescue him.
In hero wars just staying in the contest is normally worthwhile. The skillful deal with their opponents quickly so they can rescue their less skilled comrades.
>But I like the quick & dirty combat previously described. People should
>just understand that simpler combat resolution will result in more
>pencil-necked geeks beating up conan, statistically speaking.
Which is how it should be - I, for one, don't like the idea of the PNG having no chance against conan. That's why I don't play AD&D...
Graham
-- Graham Robinson. Dept. Computing Science, Glasgow. gjr_at_... http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~gjr Never trust an operating system.
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