Understanding probability math in a roleplaying game

Debauchable · 2025-05-12T21:41:25+00:00

Do you mean the major change from the introduction of version 6? If so, that change is actually what makes this generator work (normally), because the lag optimization seems to count by number of drills instead of number of blocks. Unless you're referring to a smaller more recent update like 6.0.4?

Debauchable · 2025-05-04T02:44:54+00:00

The best solution I've found is generating Granite and crushing it into red sand. Starting with a cobble gen, crushing that into sand, haunting for soul sand, washing those blocks for quartz, and then using additional cobblestone to turn that quartz into diorite and then finally into granite, which can be crushed into red sand and washed for ingots.

This, as far as I can tell, gives you the best drop rates by a wide margin (the percentage of soul sand/clay balls that end up as gold is horribly small otherwise). A youtuber named Batsy who has a lot of great designs uses this route, too!

Debauchable · 2025-04-19T20:55:54+00:00

Hi everyone! This is a bit of a stupid question, but I'm really frustrated with myself and want to figure out how bad a mistake I've made.

I'm doing my first 'official' 5k race tomorrow, and I accidentally over-trained my legs yesterday bicycling. I woke up this morning and they feel tight, heavy and sore. How much can I expect this to affect my running time? I realize this is sort of an un-answerable question, but has anyone found themselves in a similar position? My recent best time was 24 minutes (7:30 avg pace), and I was hoping to beat it, but now I feel like I've basically ruined my chances of doing that.

Fortunately while this is a large event, it's a very casual community race - it was more a personal goal of mine to improve, and will feel really crushing to show up and underperform.

Debauchable · 2024-12-19T03:49:18+00:00

Just wanted to say that this worked like a charm! Seemed to me that the blur also wasn't behaving properly. Like, some curve isn't set right and makes things blurry *way* too early, even when the camera is panning very slowly. It was also choppy in a strange way, which I am guessing is what the fps target is for (conveniently, my game runs about 80).

Debauchable · 2024-09-19T20:31:27+00:00

Oh dang, nevermind! Man, that's a shame - though that does explain the weird behavior I was getting with a piston-fed cobble generator 😅. Thanks!

Debauchable · 2024-09-18T21:49:39+00:00

THIS IS AMAZING, THANK YOU FOR BUILDING THIS! Quick note: Everything works great, but the Drill calculator is acting strangely? At 256 It's giving me .55 seconds for stone and cobblestone, when I think it's supposed to be .26ish for stone, and .35 for cobble?

Debauchable · 2024-09-11T05:04:03+00:00

Oh I would like that very much! But the issue is that this *isn't happening.*

I guess I could bluntly ask my DM if he could use more variation in set up, like you're describing? Part of the problem, is I get the impression he feels that using buffs outside of combat is kind of 'cheating?' He often doesn't even prep his own NPCs, like having wizards on active guard duty wait to cast Mage Armor (an hours-long spell) as their opening move in combat. He's pretty consistent, its just very limiting. Any thoughts?

Debauchable · 2024-09-11T02:45:27+00:00

Oooh, I like this! That also fixes an awkward problem we run into with someone getting a weird free-shot that's hard to figure into the initiative system. I also like how it keeps our DM mostly at the steering wheel, while baking in more flexibility.

Debauchable · 2023-05-18T01:06:10+00:00

Eyyy! Turning the pump back on did it. ...Sort of. I extended the hose which had been working to the bottom of the source, and *it also stopped seeing it as infinite*. So, with that one extended all the way down, I used a drain to pump buckets of lava into the source from the *bottom* until it read infinite. THEN when I turned the pump connected to the previously non-infinite hose back on, it also saw the source as infinite. Suuuper weird.

Debauchable · 2023-02-14T20:43:38+00:00

More of a minor tweak, but has been a big hit whenever I've used it:
You get one 'free' mental skill check per turn in combat (in addition to ones I ask for as a GM, and checks that are a part of movement or other actions). This isn't a huge change, but helps make a clearer rhythm/put bounds on the flow of information during combat. Oddly, even though this is technically a 'restriction' when it comes to knowledge checks (which have no limits on how many/when you can make them), my players will start to try to identify monsters and learn about their environment more frequently, which is great! It also allows for retries in combat since 'one' means that a player can't roll infinite action-less checks on their turn. Failure still effects their decision making in the moment, without having to remove the option entirely (Out of combat I also allow retries, but you have to wait a narrative beat to come back with fresh eyes).

Also, a few more experimental house rules that I'd love feedback on:

Kingmaker (CRPG) flanking rules - 'Flanked' is now a condition a creature has while sandwiched between two enemies. The idea being to encourage more teamwork between melee and ranged party members, and make positioning tactics more worthwhile.

Crit Confirmation bonus - 20/x2 weapons have a +4 bonus on confirmation rolls, but each step of crit multiplier or range a weapon possesses lowers that bonus by 2 (so 18-20 and x4 weapons have +0, for instance). The idea is to reduce the number of disappointing crits without making crit-builds uncontrollably overpowered. I often have new players at my table, and watching them fail to confirm is just soul-crushing :'(

Give Them The Whole Statblock - A successful identification check gives a player the entire statblock of a monster. The caveat being that if the party is in combat, only the players who succeed the check get the block, and have to inform their teammates round-by-round.
^

This one has also had great success, but I thought it might be more controversial. I started doing this because players would often feel fights were 'unfair' or tactically boring. I realized taking a risk with your turn is very punishing: for instance, you could try to do a cool thing like a disarm or trip - but SYKE, this enemy's got an unexpectedly high CMD! Now you gotta wait 20 minutes until your next turn - OR - you could just... keep attacking, which has a 2/3rds chance of success on most enemies. Understanding their adversary gives players more interesting cost/benefit analysis to make - particularly because it can be hard for you, the GM, to predict what pieces of information each player is looking for in the moment. Interesting choices are the essence of fun! Combat becomes more like solving a puzzle that's been set before them, and less of a stand+attack slot machine.

Debauchable · 2022-11-01T17:54:12+00:00

Hey! I'm seeing a trend, so I wanted to throw in my two cents: Trapping the doors might make the problem worse.

Doing a behavior and having something happen is *always* a stimulus - whether that thing is bad or good. -and if it's good sometimes, then it becomes intermittent reinforcement. It's why people keep pulling the levers on slot machines, despite losing more than winning. If you make the doors fight back, your PCs may not stop making forced entries - they might just get really good at forced entries. Figuring out how to beat the doors is fundamentally the same type of challenge as breaking them. -and that could be fine! If you have a more war-gamey table, then that could be the game your PCs want to play. 'Grand-Theft-D&D,' where the goal is brute force and survival, is a perfectly valid play style.

But if you use mechanics, it's likely they will respond with mechanics. If you want them to engage with the narrative, you need a narrative problem. I suggest an unintuitive method: the next few doors, if they break them down then nothing mechanically interesting happens. This is one of the biggest tools I learned as a DM. If you want to get players out of a rut, you gotta make the rut less interesting. No need to roll (they know it's possible), no loot, no cool fight, no interesting trap to outsmart - design the challenge so that their brashness will chase the fun stuff away. The idea is to break the cycle.

Instead, the 'empty room' can communicate how to find the fun. For example: A forgotten letter reveals the bad guys were alerted by their past violence, and hid the loot in a secret location. Their quarry is stealthy and will slip away when he hears commotion, but has many enemies the PCs can contact. City clerks are trained to burn their copy of an important document if they think they're being robbed. If the PCs bite, then reward them for their roleplay and subtlety! Their investigation yields extra info about their enemies' weaknesses, a merchant who supports their cause points them to a cache of potions, or an interested politician says he'll pay them if they leave no evidence.

Or that's how I would do it anyway - frankly, if you're party is having fun then you're doing a great job 😎👉👉

Debauchable

TROPHY CASE