Completely deleting what was here. If you already read what was here, I hope you got a good laugh out of it. But I changed my mind. The second post I'm leaving though.
Three GE roll
(133 posts) (10 voices)-
JohnA1nut
MemberYa know, I've sometimes wondered if a 3 GE roll and a 30 GE roll could have exactly the same outcome. That your 1 in 1000 worst fear could be exactly the same as your 1 in 1000 best hope. I just found out that it is possible.
I'm watching a movie called Tales from the Darkside. A guy that's down to his last $20, and about to be evicted from his apartment sees a demon in an alley. It kills two of his friends, and then turns on him. It says "Your life for a promise." The promise is, I will let you live if you never ever tell anyone that you saw me. The guy agrees.
Leaving the alley, the guy runs into a young woman. (Rae Dawn Chong. Who would have thought Tommy Chong could produce that angel?) They hit is off smashingly. It turns out that she has some connections that help him get his life together. They become very wealthy, get married, and have children (Not in that order) A perfect life. The American Dream, so to speak.
Then they guy tells his wife about the night in the alley. He just can't keep in inside him anymore. His wife says "You broke your promise!!!!" His wife is the demon from the alley. She kills him and takes the 2 demon children with her.
I'd say that could be either a 3 or a 30, what do you think?
Tue Nov 18 2008 6:54 am # -
I'd say that was a 30, but the guy didn't know it.
--M. J. Young
Wed Nov 19 2008 6:22 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberYa know, a 3 GE roll and a 30 can have exactly the same outcome. I just realized it.
There was a young lady that I knew some years ago. She expressed affection for me. However, due to a serious age difference, we were incompatible. I was just thinking that now, that age difference wouldn't be as much of a burden. One of us (I'm not saying which) was a minor at the time. Now we would both be legal adults.
I was just thinking that my next door neighbors just got kicked out for noise complaints.* If this young lady moved into their apartment, and we recognized each other, either we would rekindle the relationship, or we would not get along at all. I don't think there would be any middle ground there. (Hard to explain why) Besides, it's AT BEST 1 in 1,000 odds of her moving into that apartment to start with, so only a 3 or 30 could get her to move in there in the first place. Either we would get along great, or we wouldn't, and only a 3 or a 30 would get her here to start with. So, yes, a 3 and 30 can have exactly the same outcome. The outcome of the young lady moving into the apartment.
*I don't make noise complaints. I figure if my former neighbors can listen to psychotic episodes for 5 years and never complain about it, then what right do I have to complain about noise?
Fri Dec 5 2008 10:38 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberIt was just something I was thinking about, that's all. If a 3 and a 30 could have the exact same outcome. That's almost the same outcome. I'll figure out out that's exactly the same, give me some time.
Ya know what? I got one that could be either a 3 or a 30. I told that story of flipping the knife in front of my girlfriend? I consider that a 3 GE roll on a botch. However, Janie did still have an inch long cut to the bone on her wrist. You could consider that a 30 on a failure too....
Fri Dec 5 2008 8:40 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberWell, I would consider that a 30 failure, then I made a difficult Charisma check (Well, no, Janie is a sweetie, it would probably have been a bonused Charisma check with her) So she didn't press charges, and the roll for crippling injury was too high for any permanent damage. Another way to look at it, I guess.
Fri Dec 5 2008 9:15 pm # -
John, you're confusing outcome with process.
Let's take the girl out of the picture.
JW and Kyler like to joke that if you roll a 30, Vin Deisel shows up from nowhere, beats you to a pulp, smashes all your stuff, and vanishes without a trace. O.K., I know who Vin Deisel is, but not well enough to know whether I'm spelling his name correctly--but he'll make a good choice. So let's use him.
On a 3 GE roll, Vin Deisel moves in next door to you.
On a 30 GE roll, Vin Deisel moves in next door to you.
Neither of those are the outcome; they are an event heading toward an outcome.
On a 3 GE roll, he offers you your dream job being trained to work with him as a covert operative.
On a 30 GE roll, you're his target.
Either way, him moving in next door to you was a step toward the outcome, not the outcome. I could not say that the 3 GE or the 30 GE meant only that Vin Deisel moved in next door to you. I would have to say that the 3 meant he moved in next door to you in order to train you as a covert operative, and that the 30 meant he moved in next door to you in order to position himself where he could effectively terrorize and ultimately terminate you.
Threes and Thirties might look similar in the way they progress, but they cannot be said to be "the same thing".
--M. J. Young
Sat Dec 6 2008 12:36 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberMy 30 can also be my 3, in a roundabout kind of way.
I was just thinking that if I rolled a 3, the MP's gun wouldn't have been loaded. Good roll, to neutral roll he would only have the 45. Bad roll, he would have a Tommy gun and/or shotgun as well. A REALLY bad GE roll, he would have an anti-aircraft gun. (Quite effective against ground vehicles as well) However, if I rolled a 30, I would have been approached by a transport division, with trucks full of every weapon they had available.
That's a 30 for me. But just imagine if I happen to dispatch all of them? Now I have the trucks full of everything they had available.
That, I would consider a 3.
Sat Jan 3 2009 5:10 am # -
No, it can't.
Nobody said that you cannot turn the tables, take the worst imaginable situation and make it work for you. What we said is that this roll determines whether things are going the way your character wants or whether they are going opposite to what your character wants. Your character does not want to fight every blasted marine in Pearl Harbor. That would be beyond his worst nightmare (there might be something else that would stand as the one in a thousand chance disaster--such as guess what, the Manhattan Project has already started, located here, and you're at ground zero of the first successful test)--but the fact that you are able to make lemonade out of the lemons that hit you does not make it something you wanted.
I know all about things that seem good but are bad, things that are bad but seem good--I've adjudicated hundreds of AD&D wishes over the years. Wish for a powerful weapon and you'll find yourself facing the powerful opponent who has it and knows how to use it. Wish that your enemy would be teleported into the presence of a powerful dragon, and he might just manage to charm the dragon and bring it back to face you.
It does say that a 3 GE roll can be better than you can tolerate--but that does not mean that it would be like a bad roll, but that it would be what you wanted pushed so far that you find it difficult to endure. So you hope for a martial arts trainer who can get you in shape, and on a 3 GE roll you get a Mr. Miyagi with all the charm and finesse of a Mr. T. who pushes you day and night to turn you into a world champion. You got what you wanted, it just was much more than you hoped.
3 is 3 and 30 is 30.
--M. J. Young
Sun Jan 4 2009 11:46 pm # -
That's O.K. This thread actually came to mind recently, as I was glancing over the Why Spy scenario description. (Kurt, there are no spoilers here, so feel free to read.) I came upon this statement:
Although movie and book plots hold a lot of promise in this situation, the referee may find it more effective to use less tightly plotted stories, and to allow the player to develop his own direction in solving them. In this case, GE rolls should be used to dictate coincidence. For example, if the player decides to stop in a nightclub, casino, bar, restaurant, or other public place, a particularly good GE roll (13 or better) will mean that he meets someone there who will provide him with information helpful to his objective, while a particularly bad one (20 or higher) that he has crossed paths with the enemy in a way that disadvantages him. The degree should be dictated by the roll—on a 20, this could be no worse than that someone working for the enemy now knows where he is and will try to contact his boss to provide that information, while on a thirty he may have walked into a trap, possibly drugged or captured before he is aware of this. Once coincidence has stepped in, the referee should allow the player to follow this in its logical directions.
What struck me about this is, given the 20, nothing says that the player character can't spot the opponent, trap him by the telephone, and turn the tables on him. What it says is that the specific turn of events would be one that is not exactly what the player/character would have hoped or chosen for himself, not that the outcome is necessarily detrimental to the player/character. In most cases, this is what you are dealt, not the result of how you play it.--M. J. Young
Fri Jan 23 2009 10:11 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberThis whole idea came into my head originally thinking about the accident where I cut my girlfriend's wrist. I was thinking about it the other day, and I think if it had hit her wrist a quarter of an inch over, and she did lose the use of her hand, that would be a 30. A quarter of an inch between a three and a thirty.
Sat Jan 24 2009 5:37 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberYa know, Eric was saying that you can get good things out of a 3 GE roll. An @1 intuition increase I believe was one that he mentioned. Can you get bonuses like that from a 30? I was just thinking that about 5 or 6 years ago, I was talking to one of my neighbors, and he started talking about guns. He said "I got this and this." and then I said "Yeah, I have a 9mm" (A Ruger P89, like what I have in my game.) A week later, someone broke in and stole it. (Puzzled, yet very sarcastic tone) "Gee, I wonder who took it????" He moved out about a week later, and I didn't even realize he was the one until after he moved out.
Needless to say, I try to avoid talking to my neighbors now at all, if it can be avoided. Especially don't tell them what you own. Anyway, I was just thinking that that could be a 30. The one neighbor out of a thousand who actually would steal something from you. Could that have an @1 intuition increase in the game? I'm wondering.
And yes, I had the serial number, and reported it stolen. I keep feeling like God is telling me I'm going to get it back soon. Haven't gotten it back yet, though.
Sun Feb 1 2009 4:27 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberTwo Posts
Ya know, I don't know about the exact same outcome, but a 3 can actually have a worse ultimate outcome than a 30.
Some years ago, I got into a heap of trouble, and didn't even realize it. I was probably in the worst trouble I have ever been in my life, before or since. Going on the notion that a 3 reflects my hopes, then a 3 would have been that nothing changed the course I was on. A 30 would be that I get into a heap of trouble for what I had already done.
If nothing changed my course, I would ultimately have gotten into a whole lot more trouble than I would have if I had rolled the 30 to start with.
I would say I probably rolled a neutral roll, ultimately. I got into just enough trouble to change the course I was on, without really getting into trouble.
I'm just trying to put real life into Multiverser terms, in an effort to better understand the game.
Sun Feb 1 2009 11:23 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberA 3 and a 30 can have exactly the same outcome. I was just thinking about it. If that knife had hit Janie a quarter of an inch over, she would have permanently lost the use of her hand. That's a 30 for her. However, if she would still take me (and I think she would) I would have married her and made her the happiest woman in the world for the rest of her life.
That would be a 3 for me.
(Doing Therapy)
Wed Mar 4 2009 6:21 am # -
Too confused.
First of all, you're confusing the fact that a General Effects Roll is based on the perspective of one individual. I fired the bullet and missed the alien, but I hit the engine on his ship and now it's going to explode, as soon as it carries him a few hundred yards away from me. Is that a 3 or a 30? Since I am the player character, that's a 3. If I were the alien, that would be a 30. But the result's value can only be determined from the perspective of the character for whom it was rolled, and that's the player character. There's confusion only if there are multiple player characters in the scenario and they are opposing each other, but in that case we just have to know for whom the roll is being made before the dice hit the table.
Second, you're confusing the fact that a bad event can be turned to a good outcome, and treating it all as a the result of the one roll. You suggest that you dropped the knife and it severed tendons in Janie's wrist, a roll of 30 for her. You then suggest that immediately upon doing that, you would have asked her to marry you. That, though, is not the result of the GE roll: it is your action in response to the events that are the result of the GE roll. You're making the situation right after the fact. A 30 GE roll does not mean that the world came to an end, or that nobody could do anything about it. It doesn't even mean that having had the tendons in her wrist cut by the dropped knife she couldn't rush to the hospital and have them surgically repaired such that she had full use of the hand. It only means that at this moment the thing that happens is terribly bad. Now, in some cases that is the end of the world--a multiple obliterative explosion centered on your location--but the one in a thousand worst possible outcome does not prevent anyone from taking action immediately after that. The one in a thousand worst possible outcome might be that you get thrown off the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, but that does not mean that you won't get an answer when you ask God to send the angels to catch you, or that your psionic levitation won't slow your fall until you are floating in the air, or that you can't fire that grappling hook into a window and swing out and around to safety. It only means that the worst possible thing happened, not that you couldn't do anything after it happened.
So the GE roll of 30 in your example means that the tendons in her wrist were severed and she lost the use of her hand. You might be able to get her to the hospital, but that's the next action. You might persuade her to marry you, but that's the next action. It might be good for you that this happened, but that's not her GE roll, which is about how it seems to her.
Certainly you can take the worst possible thing and turn it into the starting point for something good--but that's something you have to do after the worst possible thing happened, and not part of the worst possible thing itself.
Oh, and I think that on a fumbled knife, the GE of 30 would almost certainly be a jugular vein or eye socket--something with a considerably smaller chance of survival--and not merely a severed wrist tendon. That sounds to me more like a 28 or 29.
--M. J. Young
Thu Mar 5 2009 6:56 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberTwo Posts
How about rolling a 3 in response to a 30? Or the other way around.
In another of those 80s Twilight Zone episodes, a woman finds a necklace that gives her the ability to freeze time. She can still move, but everyone else is frozen in time.
in the episode, the United States (Where she lives) gets into a nuclear war with Russia. Bombs are falling on both countries. She freezes time. Everyone is alive, just frozen, and no one will be killed in the nuclear exchange. She just had to leave it like that forever.
In 3 in anticipation of a 30, perhaps?
(Doing Therapy)
Thu Mar 5 2009 7:32 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberMultiple Posts
How about this one. A man who is desperately trying to support his family. Constantly broke, and about to be kicked out onto the street. He's walking along the street, trying to think of what to do, when he is hit on the head and killed by a meteorite.
That's a 30.
However, when his family finds his body, it turns out that the meteorite is actually a diamond the size of a baseball, of amazing clarity and value. His wife can sell the meteorite and live in style for the rest of her life.
That's a 3.
His 1 in 1,000 worst fear would be getting hit by the meteorite, but having his family becoming wealthy would be his 1 in 1,000 best hope. They are both caused by the same event, and both represent the hopes and fears of one person. No further action or rolls needed. Or is this still making it right after the fact?
EDIT (Now doing therapy with the edit) On second thought, that's 2 different rolls, isn't it? One for getting hit, and a second for the composition of the meteorite. Darn, I really thought I had it that time.
Thu Mar 5 2009 6:09 pm # -
On your Twilight Zone example, whose roll is it? The woman doesn't get a GE roll--she gets a skill check to determine whether she can do what she attempts to do. She freezes time for everyone but herself. The consequences of that are not determined by a GE roll, because all of the consequences you mention are the specific intended results of the skill check.
There might be GE rolls after this. Can she operate a car? Can she pump gasoline? Are the roads all completely blocked? This woman could, if she wished, gather her things into a vehicle and drive to Argentina. She could presumably along the way take anything she thought might have value; she could make several trips, if she wished, as long as she can store things somewhere at the other end--and she hardly needs a "safe" place if the weather is not going to change and the people are not going to be aware of her presence or movements. Even I would find it difficult to say that she was "stealing" if she removed things from the United States that were about to be destroyed by a nuclear attack (although if she takes famous artwork or other one-of-a-kind items she might have to answer some difficult questions someday).
The nuclear attack itself might be the result of a 30 GE roll; but no matter what she does with it, it is not a good thing for her--it is difficult to imagine a situation in which the answer to a 3 GE roll is "your country is being attacked by nuclear weapons and you have eight minutes to get out"--and if there were such a situation, then the 3 is a 3, because it is the possibly-better-than-she-can-tolerate good result. It is not also a 30 for her, because either it is the best thing or it is the worst thing, but it is not both even if she can take the worst and make it something good, or spoil the best into something bad.
Your assessment of the other situation seems right to me--it's not good that he was killed by a diamond, even if it is subsequently good that the diamond becomes property of his family.
--M. J. Young
Thu Mar 5 2009 8:04 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberWell, I was thinking that finding the time stopping necklace in the first place would be the 3, the the 30 is the nuclear attack.
I could imagine a situation where the answer to a 3 would be that the United States is under nuclear attack a 3. Not sure I could tell you what is is, but I could imagine one.
Give me some time MJ, I'll get a scenario where a 3 and 30 have the same outcome.
(Doing therapy)
Thu Mar 5 2009 8:33 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberA handful of very powerful aliens bent on world conquest have invaded The United States and Russia. These aliens are unknown to all but a small handful of people on both sides. These aliens can only be killed by a nuclear attack, and in anticipation of this, an alien in the US can only be killed by a Russian nuke, and a Russian alien can only be killed by an American nuke.
A 3, the Russians, knowing that the aliens can only be killed by their missile fire, attack the United States, in anticipation of the return fire. They decide that sacrificing their two countries is better than the aliens taking over the entire world.
A 30, the Russians fire on the US, because they believe the US responsible for the aliens. The US counter attack destroys Russia, and all of the aliens.
The end result for someone who survived the exchange is that all of the aliens are dead, and a nuclear war destroyed most of the Northern Hemisphere.
A 3 and 30 with the same outcome.
The outcome is the same, only the motivation for the outcome changes.
(Doing Therapy)
Thu Mar 5 2009 8:58 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberNo, the outcome is the same whatever the intention. Either killing all the aliens in a massive nuclear exchange is good or it is not.
No, in the 3 scenario, the people are collateral damage to an attempt to kill the aliens.
In the 30, the aliens are collateral damage in an attempt to kill the people.
If any people or aliens survived is a separate GE roll.
(Doing Therapy)
Thu Mar 5 2009 9:43 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberMultiple Posts
It just says something about the hearts of the people pushing The Button, that's all. In the 3 scenario, the hearts of the men are kind, generous, out to save what will remain of the world with a glorious sacrifice of human life.
In the 30, they are war mongering jerks who want nothing more than to wipe out "Those infidels responsible for this alien infestation."
Any other GE roll would mean no nuclear exchange.
Thu Mar 5 2009 10:13 pm # -
JohnA1nut
MemberGuys, I am in a psychotic state. I will probably post quite a few times tonight. However, this is something I bet no one ever thought of.
This automatically gives 3 variant worlds. One is the 4-29 GE roll world, and of course, running the 3 and the 30 as divergent worlds. What would be the difference? Well, in the 3 world, society would be more polite, less racism, willing to fight and die to defend what was theirs. In the 30, racism would be rampant, it would be an "Every man for Himself" attitude to life, and things would be a lot more gritty.
I'm going to try not to post anymore, but hey, if something good comes out of it, who is to argue? For all I know, this is inspiration from God. (I try to keep an open mind)
Fri Mar 6 2009 12:27 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberDoing therapy. Going to try to keep all multiple postings game related. Who knows? A world or two could come out of this.
Cube Zero. Another example of a 3 or a 30. You'd have to be a fan of a Cube series to understand, but a guy with intimate knowledge of the Cube's inner workings goes inside to help the people trapped.
This of course alerts security.
The end result is that they have 10 minutes to get out before being flash incinerated.
Was the outsider's arrival a 3 or a 30?
Again, you'd have to see the movie, (Cube Zero) but it could go either way. No one has ever survived The Cube. Getting 10 minutes to get out would be a blessing. However, there's always that chance that you could be the one who would have made it out alive. If not for the outsider, your chances would have remained the same either way. (Well, within the spectrum of a 4-29 GE roll, anyway)
Fri Mar 6 2009 1:04 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberMultiple posts, as explained above.
Yeah, the 3 is the tech shows up, and you get out of The Cube in one piece.
The 30 is the tech shows up, and you were the one who would have made it out alive.
Both result in the tech showing up.
You'd have to see the movie to understand why, but a tech showing up would be 1 to 1,000 odds.
Fri Mar 6 2009 1:20 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberMultiple Posts
That would be the obvious side effect of the 3 and 30 being the same result. It would also be the most likely outcome. So to amend that, A 3 is nuclear war, no racism or bigotry, a 30 is nuclear war, tons of racism and bigotry, and the most likely outcome is nuclear war with an average amount of racism and bigotry.
In a psychotic state right now.
Four years ago, I would have been screaming obscenities.
Do us all a favor, and just deal with it.
Fri Mar 6 2009 2:15 am # -
In your own efforts to clarify the difference between the 3 Nuclear War and the 30 Nuclear war, you re-wrote the backstory. You made them two different worlds. But the GE roll has to be made relative to a specific character in a specific world, and so it can't work that way.
Besides, a 30 GE roll in that scenario is that nuclear war kills most of the humans, but the aliens survive and begin to conquer the rest of the planet.
And the 3 GE roll is wow, guess what, there's another way to kill all the aliens that won't kill quite so many people.
Besides, there is no reason to roll such a general effects roll in that story. Whose roll is it? That is, if we're talking about events happening around the player character, what is his place in the story, and what does he want to have happen? If he wants all the aliens killed and is willing to sacrifice all the people to do it, then the nuclear war is a good thing. If he wants to save the people and the aliens are the problem then then nuclear war is a bad thing. Remember, the general effects roll is not about some absolute notion of what good and bad outcomes there are. It is about what the player character hopes and what the player character fears. You cannot, as an individual inside that scenario, both hope that a nuclear war will kill all the aliens at the cost of most of humanity and want to avoid that as your prime objective. It's either what you want or what you do not want, and never both.
You're objectifying the "good" and "bad" sides of these outcomes, but the General Effects Roll is never objective, it is always subjective.
--M. J. Young
Sat Mar 7 2009 3:25 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberIn your own efforts to clarify the difference between the 3 Nuclear War and the 30 Nuclear war, you re-wrote the backstory. You made them two different worlds. But the GE roll has to be made relative to a specific character in a specific world, and so it can't work that way.
No MJ, I can see where you got confused, but what I was saying is that the nuclear exchange triggered either the sense of love or the sense of every man for himself. Or maybe I didn't. I can't be certain. However, this is a possible loophole.
Besides, a 30 GE roll in that scenario is that nuclear war kills most of the humans, but the aliens survive and begin to conquer the rest of the planet.
Well, a nuclear war would be a 1 in 1,000 bad luck, wouldn't it?
And the 3 GE roll is wow, guess what, there's another way to kill all the aliens that won't kill quite so many people.
No, I was thinking that for someone who was afraid of the aliens, the 1 in 1,000 good luck would be that they be taken out in one fell swoop. A nuclear exchange would be a 1 in 1,000 fell swoop to take out the aliens, would it not? It's just in the "Intolerably Good" category.
What I was saying was that for someone in say, Brazil, who will more than likely survive, this could be a 1 in 1,000 good or bad event. If the destruction the aliens promise is worse than the destruction of the two countries.
The 3 world gets another bonused GE roll for how many aliens were killed.
The 30 world gets a penalized GE roll for how many humans were killed.
Still though, those are separate rolls.
Well, this is close, if nothing else.
(Doing Therapy)
Sat Mar 7 2009 4:51 am # -
Not necessarily. If I drop you in Wargames, and you leave it to Matthew Broderick to solve the problem and don't get involved, a nuclear war is not worse than a 21, bad enough, and maybe happens on any roll worse than a 13 Barely Good Enough. But then, that's assuming that you care whether there's a nuclear war or not. If you don't care either way--if whether the nuclear war happens doesn't make a difference to you--then a GE roll probably isn't the way to resolve it. A GE roll only works in relation to what the character for whom the roll is being made wants. If the character doesn't care, it doesn't work.Well, a nuclear war would be a 1 in 1,000 bad luck, wouldn't it?
Sure it is--but it's not also the result of a 30. If I'm the character for whom the roll is made, and I want to get rid of all the aliens at any cost and human lives are irrelevant as long as they aren't mine, then something that kills all the aliens and most of the humans is, hey, a good answer for a 3 GE roll (although better if it leaves lots of reclaimable land and wealth, so maybe neutron bombs with short half-lives). But then, the same outcome is not a 30 GE roll, because it does what I most want, not what I most fear. The 30 GE roll would be that nuclear war kills most of the humans and none of the aliens, because my fear is that the aliens are here and will get me, so the thirty means that they are even closer to getting me.I was thinking that for someone who was afraid of the aliens, the 1 in 1,000 good luck would be that they be taken out in one fell swoop. A nuclear exchange would be a 1 in 1,000 fell swoop to take out the aliens, would it not? It's just in the "Intolerably Good" category.
And what I'm saying is for that guy who is in Brazil, either this is a good thing or it is a bad thing. It is not both the best possible thing and the worst possible thing. In order for you to make "nuclear war" both the best and the worst, you have to qualify it differently--"nuclear war which kills all the aliens and few of the people" versus "nuclear war which eliminates our best hopes for defeating the aliens and leaves them greatly strengthened in their positions." But then, "nuclear war" is no longer the consequence, it is the first part of the consequence.What I was saying was that for someone in say, Brazil, who will more than likely survive, this could be a 1 in 1,000 good or bad event. If the destruction the aliens promise is worse than the destruction of the two countries.
Looked at another way, we could take the nuclear war out of the GE roll. We could say that for whatever reason the nuclear conflict is inevitable, and someone fires the first shot as the aliens are trying to get control of the world. We know that the nuclear war will do specific damage to the two major powers. We need a GE roll for what it does to everything else. On a 3, wow, the war is contained and all or most of the aliens are killed. On a 30, oh my, the aliens are unaffected by the nuclear attacks and the spreading fallout is weakening humanity and making it easier for the aliens to take the rest of the planet. But it isn't whether there's a war that matters, but what affect the war has on the aliens and the rest of the world. That's the part the GE roll is covering.
--M. J. Young
Sun Mar 8 2009 1:46 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberMJ, I guess we just see it differently. The way I see it is, Guy in Brazil:
3 GE Roll: "Man, I really wish those aliens would be destroyed in one fell swoop. That would be my wish." (However, he doesn't know that the nuclear war would take them out in one fell swoop.)
30 GE roll: "Man, I really hope those aliens arriving doesn't cause the (normal racial tensions) to escalate into nuclear war." (Again, he doesn't know that nuclear war would ALSO take out the aliens.)
To him, wiping out the aliens would be a 1 in 1,000 good thing.
A nuclear war between the US and Russia would be a 1 in 1,000 bad thing.
Ah, I think I get you now. A 1 in 1,000 good thing would be a nuke war that killed all the aliens and left most of the people.
A 1 in 1,000 bad thing would be a nuke war that killed most of the people and left most of the aliens.
Still though, a nuke war is never good.
Damn, I really thought I had it that time.
I'll come up with one. Just give me time.
(Doing Therapy)
Sun Mar 8 2009 3:47 am # -
JohnA1nut
MemberTwo Posts
Just curious, could you run it the 3 and the 30 both being nuclear war, and who and what survived determined by a separate GE roll?
I'm asking if that would be an acceptable way to do it.
The 3 roll is the guy in Brazil saying "I wish those aliens would be taken out in one fell swoop"
Then rolling a bonused GE roll for how many aliens died, a bonused roll for how many people survived, and going from there.
The 30 roll would be, guy in Brazil "I really hope this doesn't push things into nuclear war."
Penalized roll on how many aliens were left, penalized roll on how many people survived.
Would that be an acceptable way to do it?
You say that this game can do ANYTHING, having two 1 in 1,000 chance rolls have the same outcome is SOMETHING.
If that would be acceptable as a compromise as per the Multiverser rules, then a 3 and 30 can have the same outcome, and Multiverser can do ANYTHING.
And even then, a roll of 12-21 could be the same on both bonued and penalized rolls. So, the 3 and 30 could have the EXACT same outcome. If this would be an acceptable way to do it, per the Multiverser rules, then it works.
(Doing Therapy)
Sun Mar 8 2009 4:44 am #
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