Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2012 10:05:09 GMT -6
Many of you may already know of this, but doing a site search I didn't find any mention of it so I thought I'd share.
Recently I heard about the D34 (a 34 sided die), many would brush it off as possibly the stupidest dice ever created. I thought it pretty useless at first myself, until I realized how close it is to 33 (or 33%). Playing with the thought I discovered by rolling 3 of them you can get results ranging from 3-102 or 2-101 or 1-100(!) A D33 (if ever one existed) could not do this, it would range from 3-99 or 1-97, now that's just stupid. But that crazy queer number 34 when applied as a 3 dice roll actually becomes quite useful, creating a 1-100 bell curve.
So when creating your long 100 lists keep the 3D34 bell curve in mind. I've come up with two such lists(YMMV). One, it could be used to populate furnished rooms with mundane items, the averages being the most common items ever found: you find a candlestick, a chamber pot, some rags, a bottle of wine, a rusty penny etc. Moving outward things would become the scarcer of mundane house items, trying to keep them non genre or class specific is the only problem, an alchemist kit in the blacksmiths shop, or a peasant with a plague doctors mask doesn't make sense unless your prepared to make it make sense. An orc chest containing these items makes perfect sense if the orc is in the profession of killing people and taking their stuff. 1 in 100 people slaughtered by an orc would not all be alchemists or plague doctors or princesses with jeweled crowns or witch doctors with shrunken heads ... but the bell curve takes care of this quite nicely.
Secondly it could be useful as a Rumors Table if you roll on it often enough to be worthwhile. Maybe allowing each character a roll every time they return to town. "The Dungeon is a very dangerous place filled with evil creatures" would be the extent of most peoples knowledge of the dungeon, while another may tell you of a benevolent fairy that lives in a nearby forest, or a hidden room on level 1. While still others may tell you trolls are afraid of fire, or slugs shrivel and die when salted (and taste quite nice).
As always you must be careful to make your rumors useful while not being necessary to advancement or survival. But if your already filling your table with "dungeons are dangerous" 30 times, whilst "a dragon lives on level 9" only once, then the 3D34 may be something to consider, albeit quite exhaustive with extreme rarities.
I haven't seen the exact probabilities but it seems to me the shallow spread would give some very random results, definitely the so called averages would not pop up even 50% of the time, while the polars would range around 0.01%, the averages maybe 10%, e.g. not every room would contain a candlestick (the candle stick would still be more probable than any other result) but would include a range of random things from different portions of the table. Getting the deepest results would depend on how many times you roll (hundreds for the polar extremes).
Math is not my strong point, but I think there's much potential for this system. Maybe someone can show us the probabilities and potential. I can't help thinking this is some kind of godlike bell curve.
Sorry for rambling on, I'm fascinated by this thing right now, hopefully some of you can make use of it.
Recently I heard about the D34 (a 34 sided die), many would brush it off as possibly the stupidest dice ever created. I thought it pretty useless at first myself, until I realized how close it is to 33 (or 33%). Playing with the thought I discovered by rolling 3 of them you can get results ranging from 3-102 or 2-101 or 1-100(!) A D33 (if ever one existed) could not do this, it would range from 3-99 or 1-97, now that's just stupid. But that crazy queer number 34 when applied as a 3 dice roll actually becomes quite useful, creating a 1-100 bell curve.
So when creating your long 100 lists keep the 3D34 bell curve in mind. I've come up with two such lists(YMMV). One, it could be used to populate furnished rooms with mundane items, the averages being the most common items ever found: you find a candlestick, a chamber pot, some rags, a bottle of wine, a rusty penny etc. Moving outward things would become the scarcer of mundane house items, trying to keep them non genre or class specific is the only problem, an alchemist kit in the blacksmiths shop, or a peasant with a plague doctors mask doesn't make sense unless your prepared to make it make sense. An orc chest containing these items makes perfect sense if the orc is in the profession of killing people and taking their stuff. 1 in 100 people slaughtered by an orc would not all be alchemists or plague doctors or princesses with jeweled crowns or witch doctors with shrunken heads ... but the bell curve takes care of this quite nicely.
Secondly it could be useful as a Rumors Table if you roll on it often enough to be worthwhile. Maybe allowing each character a roll every time they return to town. "The Dungeon is a very dangerous place filled with evil creatures" would be the extent of most peoples knowledge of the dungeon, while another may tell you of a benevolent fairy that lives in a nearby forest, or a hidden room on level 1. While still others may tell you trolls are afraid of fire, or slugs shrivel and die when salted (and taste quite nice).
As always you must be careful to make your rumors useful while not being necessary to advancement or survival. But if your already filling your table with "dungeons are dangerous" 30 times, whilst "a dragon lives on level 9" only once, then the 3D34 may be something to consider, albeit quite exhaustive with extreme rarities.
I haven't seen the exact probabilities but it seems to me the shallow spread would give some very random results, definitely the so called averages would not pop up even 50% of the time, while the polars would range around 0.01%, the averages maybe 10%, e.g. not every room would contain a candlestick (the candle stick would still be more probable than any other result) but would include a range of random things from different portions of the table. Getting the deepest results would depend on how many times you roll (hundreds for the polar extremes).
Math is not my strong point, but I think there's much potential for this system. Maybe someone can show us the probabilities and potential. I can't help thinking this is some kind of godlike bell curve.
Sorry for rambling on, I'm fascinated by this thing right now, hopefully some of you can make use of it.
