02 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Input and Output Randomness
The fundamental difference between randomness that support strategy and randomness that under cuts strategy, input randomness allows the player to build the strategy output randomness undercuts it and limits your ability to plan ahead. For example let's look at Pandemic this is a great example of input randomness flicking the cards is certainly random, create a situation that the players need to react to that reaction is completely deterministic. If for example you have to roll dies if you re... 1 
notes
notesInput randomness is a random initial state for a game, while output randomness is rolling dice or drawing cards during the game. The second removes strategy from the game.
27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus
With Educational Games, Even if the Kids Don't Get It, Yo...
...where does probability theory come from? What is its source? Clearly, like many other sciences, like arithmetic itself, probability theory emerged from observations of certain real-world phenomena, namely, random, unpredictable phenomena. And it is exactly these kinds of observations—fundamental to the formation of science—which are worth making together with kids. Well, not all of them, of course, just the simplest ones. Besides, kids are making them on their own; e.g., when they play... 1 notes
notes20 JUN 2017 by ideonexus
Category Practice
Students appear to use a different kind of thinking when they create original patterns following rules they create (Grabowski, Damasio, & Damasio, 1998). Activities that engage students in building categories can start as early as preschool. Building category practice can be done with a bag of mixed buttons. After first modeling the procedure, you can have students work on their own or in pairs to sketch the categories they discover. Th is would also work as a language arts learning cente... 1 notes
notesThis would work great with dice. Sort by color or number of sides.
26 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
Role-Playing Game Manifesto
These rules are written on paper, not etched in stone tablets.
Rules are suggested guidelines, not required edicts.
If the rules don't say you can't do something, you can.
There are no official answers, only official opinions.
When dice conflict with the story, the story always wins.
Min/Maxing and Munchkinism aren't problems with the game; they're problems with the player.
The game master has full discretionary power over the game.
The game master always works with, not against, the p...Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
1 25 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
RPG as Collaborative Creation
Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. You create silly in-jokes that make you laugh years later. The dice will be cruel to you, but you will soldier on. Your collective creativity will build stories that you will tell again and again, ranging from the utterly absurd to the stuff o f legend.
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
25 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
RPG as Storytelling
The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. It shares elements with childhood games o f make-believe. Like those games, D & D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.
[...]
Unlike a game of make-believe, D&D gives structure to the stories, a way o f determining the consequences o f th...Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
24 FEB 2015 by ideonexus
4th Edition Player's Handbook Definition of RPG
A roleplaying game is a storytelling game that has elements of the games of make-believe that many of us played as children. However, a roleplaying game such as D&D provides form and structure, with robust gameplay and endless possibilities.
D&D is a fantasy-adventure game. You create a character, team up with other characters (your friends), explore a world, and battle monsters. While the D&D game uses dice and miniatures, the action takes place in your imagination. There, you h...Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
Folksonomies: rpg role-playing game
09 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
The Race to 100
The children take turns rolling the dice, which are labeledu00a0zero 1s tou00a0five 1su00a0onu00a0the first die andu00a0zero 10s tou00a0five 10s on the second die.
Afteru00a0a studentu00a0rolls theu00a0two dice, he takes theu00a0rodsu00a0and cubes representing the number of 10s and 1s he rolled and puts them on his mat. It is then the next player's turn to roll.
When a player has ten or more 1s cubes on his mat, he must replace ten 1s with a 10s rod before he hands over the dice for the nex... 1 notes
notes13 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Gary Gygax Explains Dice
As the DM, the tools of your trade are dice — platonic solid-shaped or just about any other sort. The random numbers you generate by rblling dice determine the results based on the probabilities determined herein or those you have set forth on your own. In case you are not familiar with probability curves, there are two types which are determined by your dice: linear (straight line),'which has equal probability of any given integer in the number group, and bell (ascending and descending lin... 1 notes
notesProbability, percentages, averages, there's a lot of math in this introduction to the most important tool of the gamer.
What does it mean that the average role of a 1d6 is 3.5 but the probability of any number coming up is 16.7?
12 APR 2011 by ideonexus
The Natural Law Argument
We now find that a great many things we thought were natural laws are really human conventions. You know that even in the remotest depths of stellar space there are still three feet to a yard. That is, no doubt, a very remarkable fact, but you would hardly call it a law of nature. And a great many things that have been regarded as laws of nature are of that kind. On the other hand, where you can get down to any knowledge of what atoms actually do, you will find they are much less subject to l... 1 notes
notesMany of the things we consider natural laws are really just human conventions.
