Fiat = arbitrary declaration, supported only by authority.

I prefer to roll somewhat hidden, for the opposite reason... So I can fudge the roll if Im about to kill a player with a bullshit roll.
Don't get me wrong, they still suffer consequence but unless they've done something extraordinarily stupid I might reduce net hits from totally dead to survivable, necessary from time to time, I'm quite lucky with dice.

As two whole pages have sprung up overnight (I skimmed the first one) I did not see this mentioned:

NPCs do not have their own Edge (I believe this is even stated in the rules). Instead mooks have a "shared Edge pool" of a limited size. This keeps mooks from spending edge on every defense test where the GM can keep throwing more mooks at the problem. Only major NPCs--prime runners, dragons, etc.--have their own Edge pool.

The GM should just be subject to the same rules as his players in the interest of fairness, and how things are run in the game (even the style of game) should be determined by the majority of the group. The players are the majority, the GM is the minority, so when it comes to style or anything, what they say should be what goes.

Check your targets - that's not my notion.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat

Pay especial attention to #3.

The 'arbitrary' part is the problem.

Stop your discussion about the role of the GM, GM fiat, and related topics, as this is not topic of this thread. Thank you.

My dice luck is apocalyptically powerful when GMing. It's really horrible: I can reliably roll 4-5 hits, 4-5 sixes, on 4-5 dice. More often than not. I don't fudge nearly enough. My players always die.

My dice luck translates SOMEWHAT when I'm PCing, but it's not nearly that ridiculous. I at least get SOME bad rolls. Never when I'm GMing, though. It's annoying.

By the way, the above specifically describes SR. It varies from game system to game system, I seem to have better luck with d6s then any other kind of dice.

Remember when we were kids in school and they taught us probability existed? lol



In SR4, all named NPCs and also spirits get their own Edge. Goons (nameless NPCs) get shared edge based on what used to be called Professional Rating/Threat Rating. The 'spirits' part is a bit of a problem. Spirits get as much edge as most PCs, and more than some. I kind of think they should be treated more like goons.

Careful Neurosis, there's several people on both forums that just harp on the mathematical calculations on probability and denigrate anyone who speaks of luck as superstitious and delusional...

Dude, weird shit happens with dice. Just saying. Like, if an "average" shadowrun roll should yield about one hit for every three dice rolled, according to probability, I consistently roll about one hit for every 1.5 dice rolled while GMing, or about twice as good as probability dictates. It's weird, it's scary, it happens. My players, on the other hand, are awesome at rolling absurd numbers of 1s and far-below-probability hits.

On the SAME PHYSICAL DICE.

Also, it happens specifically when I am GMing.

Perhaps every set of dice I have ever owned is somehow defective? Perhaps, more likely, there's some degree of observational bias? I'm not sure. What I am sure is that what I have learned about probability in school and what I have empirically observed do not sinc up at all. I am not a superstitious person, and certainly not delusional, which is why this observable phenomenon, with years of observed evidence, really weirds me out. It's not how it's supposed to work. Probability should exist. It just seems to well, get bent sometimes. : )

Oh, I know it happens. I've seen it myself. I was just warning you that there are a lot of posters that attack people for suggesting that luck exists.

LOL, that's pretty silly. : )

Then again, I've been on the anti-suspicion bandwagon myself, so I understand.

Aww, he's being persecuted.

Double post, sorry.

So that's where my freaking good rolls are going!

Seriously, on a d20, I have rolled 4 1's in a row followed by a 2 and another 1. I never have to fudge dice. When I get behind the screen the NPC's are screwed.

In our last game, I had a group of moderately trained opposition rolling 9 dice on short bursts (first one compensated and second one -3 for 6 dice). There were 3 of them. In 2 passes, I didn't roll above two hits on any of them. (6 rolls with 9 dice and 6 with 6 dice). What should have been a gang getting revenge on the team over a previous incident succeeded in doing 2 boxes of damage and messing up their van. After that, the group wasn't afraid of the gang any more, decided they could take em out rather than deal with them. The mage did more damage to herself crit glitching a summoning check. It would have been comical if they had seen what I was rolling.

Probability theory is not a script for the future, and there is no cosmic force which fudges your dice after rolling too good or bad for several times in a row. Not that I have much hope mankind will ever learn that, the gambler's fallacy is probably as old as gambling.


Still, there are plenty of cash challenges for proving a supernatural gift, so if you believe the laws of nature do not apply to you...



Rolling one hit in three dice has the highest individual probability among results, depending on the DP it might still be quite unlikely

And there one of them goes with the denigration...

The black helicopter's already on it's way.

I like complaining about bad dice and poor luck as much as the next gamer. Doesn't change the fact that statistics actually work, and true randomness will have clumps. Here's a good example.

Anecdotal rebuttal:

I ama huge, HUGE fan of point-buy attributes for ANY system ... due to experiences with campaign after campaign requiring a reboot, because of one player's unnatural luck with the dice. Seriously, three players; two would consistently get (using "4d6, drop the lowest, arrange to taste") averages around 12 or 13; one or two scores as low as 7, one or two scores as high as 16.

The third guy? Averaged 16+, never had less than 3-4 scores of 17+, never less than one 18. Anything lower than 13 was "really low" to him. And he wasn't cheating. It didn't matter where the rolls were made. I made him use my dice. I made him use a CUP. I rolled FOR him - not allowing him to even TOUCH the dice with his hands! Bloody hell, I even rolled for him, without him present, two days before he knew there would BE a game, in a different building than we played in; he got ONE set "suck it up", I rolled SIX APIECE for the other guys - same table, same hour, same dice, same hands. Once, I put him on "3d6 play 'em where they lay" hardcore 1E attribute gen, and the others kept the usual rules.

And for something like a year and a half, it was "Player C and his sidekicks" over and over again, because of how the attributes came out. Every. Single. DAMNED. Time.

...

Don't ever tell me there's no such thing as "luck". I've seen first-hand evidence of it, and it is very real. Unpredictible, but real.

_Pax._, in spite of all the precautions you mention, I am quite certain that he was cheating. Since he got at least one 19 on 4d6 drop lowest, I'd check to see if he was actually using 6-siders, and if he was, whether or not they were actually numbered 1-6.

Dude, non-human race. Probably had a 17 before +2 from race for a total of 19.

That 19 was a typo, it should have been (and now is) "18".

And, regardless of aught else ... explain to me how he cheats when:

• A freshly-bought set of dice was used EDIT: and yes, since I bought them and I know how to tell one die from another, I am 100% certain they were six-sided dice;
• The same set of dice was used for ALL players;
• I rolled the dice, not him;
• The player in question had never set eyes upon said dice, let alone touched them;
• The player in question was a half-mile away from the dice when they were rolled;
• None of the players even knew dice were being rolled at all;
• The player in question was held to a stricter standard of generation (3d6 play-them-where-they-fall) than the other players (4d6, drop the lowest, arrange-to-taste)

It's literally physically impossible for him to have "cheated", unless you would like to posit an ability on his part to generate a quantum energy field of some sort, unconsciously and at great distance from himself, that applied only to tabletop RPG attribute generation for his own characters.

Which, well, would certainly be luck expressed in technobabble terms, yes?

We have a house rule where if you roll 4 sixes you get a nineteen makes the character feel extra special. Also I have stat dice, they roll rubbish for anything but stats, for stats their average for stats is 15.

I've heard of that rule, but the way I heard it was all dice coming up the same number (regardless of what the number was).

I have a reputation with dice in my house. I'll roll extremely well for attributes when they're needed, and I will often select a special die for gaming. I had a game master watching my die rolls for one game, and just stare in shock as I pulled off multiple 18s on 3d6. (And then a 6 on the bonus d6, since this was using Palladium mechanics). For this Nightspawn game, I wound up with a character using 24s+ in his social attributes, and a 44 for appearance (where Aphrodite has a 40).

Another friend is planning a new Pathfinder game, and has decided he wants to go point-buy, simply because he doesn't want me rolling attributes. :\ A shame, really. If you've got a talent, you should be allowed to use it.

^^^^ Sounds just like the Mister Lucky I used to game with. ^_^

We just do 1's and 6's but ones go down.

The problem is that low-Edge refresh rates punish the lower Edge characters more than high ones. Leaving aside the issues of increasing dice pools, the higher Edge characters can ration their Edge just as well as anyone else. If you don't refresh often, the higher Edge characters will soon be the only ones with Edge left to play with.

But he spend his experience somewhere else. It's not that clear.

1.) The plural of "anecdote" is not "data"
2.) What you are describing is not a rebuttal but exactly what I'm talking about: The belief that unlikely events must not happen, or that $DEITY will fudge the dice to make the distribution of results match the probability distribution.


Or maybe because they were expecting the game to be "Player C and his sidekicks"? There is a reason why science uses blind tests

@All4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXdM8fkup4Q

Actually ... yes, it is. Data is information gained by observation. My anecdote is a single data point.


A dozen or more instances, always following the same pattern of defying statistical probability, despite going to herculean lengths to remove that person's ability to physically manipulate the outcome.

Tell me what, you explain it.


Did you just suggest that the player expectations of how the dice would fall, influenced where they actually did fall?

Player A: 8, 10, 10, 11, 13, 15 (average is ~11; average modifier is +0.3334 in a range from -1 to +2)
Player B: 7, 9, 12, 12, 14, 16 (average is ~11.5; average modifier is +0.8334 in a range from -2 to+3)
Player C: 13, 13, 13, 16, 16, 18 (average is 15; average modifier is +2.1667 in a range from +1 to +4)

To see the above general distribution, not just one or twice, but 10, 15, 20 times? That's a pattern, and it's one that defies statistical predictions.

So.

Without referencing luck, and given the tremendous anti-cheating measures I imposed... explain it.

Heh. The first time I discovered I was 'lucky' at RPGs, was the first tie I rolled a character for Star Frontiers. I'd only known the guy for a few days, and he was helping walk me through chargen, since this was my first RPG outside of Red Box D&D, and was new to the whole RPG thing still (wow... times sure change, I design RPGs now as a job). So, he showed me the d%, and told me to roll.

Me: "Watch me roll 00"
Dice: Here you go, boss!
Me: ...!
Him: ! ...

The look on his face was priceless.

Confirmation bias. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Everyone remembers when they had a really good set of rolls (or in my case a really bad set of rolls). I don't remember any of the stats I rolled in high school, but I definitely remember the one time that one guy in the group rolled 3 17's. Given that we each probably made about 6-10 characters throughout the time I played in high school and there were about 4-5 people in any given game, that's somewhere around 30-40 sets of stats that I don't remember anything about. So looking back the only things I remember are Matt's 3 17's and the time I rolled 4 1's one after another, out of thousands of rolls. Of course they're skewed. And since I now have it in my head that I roll terribly because of those 1's, every time I do it stands out and confirms my bias.

And given a large enough sample of roleplayers, it's likely that one amongst them will win the lottery on dice rolls (so to speak) and be able to present anecdotal evidence that really rare things are common. Just ask anyone who has won the lottery and it probably starts sounding like a good investment.

Also, that distribution is not actually very unlikely for 4d6, take the highest 3. Player B's rolls are actually about as likely as Player C's. 13 is the most commonly rolled number, 14 is the 3rd most common, 16 is the more common than 9 and while 18 is uncommon, it still happens more than 1 in a hundred times and it's only about 1/2 as rare as a 7.

Absolutely Dead. Fecking. Wrong.

I had three players. The guy I'm talking about, NEVER had less than stellarly-awesome attributes. This isn't just "I only remember his good sets", no, I remember specifically the unbroken string of absolutely awesome attribute sets he had.


Every time?

This is like someone who can't win less than twenty bucks, on any $1 scratch ticket ... ever.

I'm going to have to go with "so what?" on this. It's not that unlikely, probably within a standard deviation, almost certainly within two. All the incredulity and implication is a nice touch, but this really isn't going anywhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backfire_effect#Backfire_effect

There's simply no convincing you at this point.

Also, I use to know someone that can do that with scratch tickets. They're far from random. We worked at a gas station together and she could watch the pattern on a roll of scratch offs and determine when a winner was coming up. Turned a $7.00 an hour job into a $12-15 dollar an hour job for her. She probably could have made more, but she had to wait until the customers bought all the losers first.

Data is not just about quantity, but also about quality. Anecdotes typically do not involve controlled, repeatable conditions.



Always a possibility when objects are handled manually (see dowsing with pendulums or rods, or "facilitated communication"), but much more likely is simple observational bias, combined with a low sample size. And in case of how the games turned out a nocebo effect among the players -- they were convinced their characters would suck compared to Lucky Guy, so they played accordingly.



You didn't even apply the most basic measure: Randomization. Roll a D4 under a cup and keep it there, then roll four character sheets, then look at the D4 to decide which sheet will be the one of Mister Lucky. Repeat ~50 times.

Look, it's like this: I have a personal, direct, first-hand experience. I know three other people who are witnesses to it, as well.

So no, this isn't any "backfire effect" nonsense. You're not presenting me with evidence of any sort - you're just saying "that doesn't happen". Well, screw you, it did; I was there.

Or maybe this "backfire effect" is something you are experiencing? Ever consider that?


...


No, of course not. [/sarcasm]

A lot of "data" doesn't involve controlled, repeatable conditions either. Climate science, for example.

Well, this player obviously has the lucky quality and has edge 8.

Of course he's lucky. Succeeding in spite of the odds is the definition of lucky. But ... how does this pertain to dice pools and edge usage in SR5?

Edge = Luck.

And some people are offended by the idea that "luck"is a quantifiable, definitive advantage represented with an attribute. Nevermind the premise of dwarves, elves, magic, dragons, shedim, etc, etc. Nope; "luck" offends them. Thus ... Edge should be done away with. (As has been suggested in this very thread.)

Don't take offense, please. I am neither damning you nor trying to rile you up
I meant the real life person. Luck is as quantifiable in RL as God is and we don't go there either on a forum.
In game, yes, edge = luck, until it runs out. And I think, I've made my point of view on edge very clear a few pages back.

What? Edge shouldn't go away because "luck" is offensive. Edge should go away because Edge is a stupid system that's poorly implemented and works awfully.

I've taken no offense at/from you, Bannock. You aren't suggesting that I'm either a liar or off my rocker.

I disagree. One of the first thoughts I had about 3E, was that moving all those pools into an attribute, was elegant in it's simplicity.

And I disagree, as many others do. I've seen no argument for why it's 'poorly implemented' and neither have I seen it 'work awfully'.
Karma pool was poorly implemented, because characters beyond a certain level always succeeded at what they tried. It still worked fine at normal power levels.
Edge works fine, too, except in a few fringe cases, where the system breaks down. Which is, in general, the case with most fringe cases.

That's not what happened, though. Edge is most comparable to Karma Pool, not any of the other pools -- you don't get the effect (or even close) of the pools from Edge. The effect of Edge was to take Karma Pool and exponentiate its usefulness.

As well as limit it to a reasonable number with its inherent hardcap.