I have to side with S4 on this one. Knowing the probabilities all the time may not completely take away the drama and suspense, but it does diminish it, in my experience as both GM and player. And sure, sometimes you do know your odds of succeeding in real life, but not always, perhaps not even often.
I know what you mean about calculating your odds mentally in real life, I do it too, but this is a bad example. You may know, for example, that you have in the past defeated 40% of the muggers you have encountered, and thus in that respect have a 40% chance of succeeding against any random future mugger, but what you don't know is the specific skills and advantages in any particular case. Perhaps this guy tonight is a karate master, and your real odds of winning against this particular guy are perhaps 10%. Now against which odds is your character going to have to roll? You're going to have to roll against this guys stats, if not his rolls too, not your generic 40% chance of winning. How would you know this guy's skills until after you got your butt whipped? Therefore despite one's estimations in real life (which is like knowing your own skill level), you do not know the "true odds" against any particular throw of the dice. This goes against the argument that this is more realistic. As does S4's counter-example where after half the fight you have an idea of your odds of landing blows against someone/thing are, but not initially. That information comes from assessing how successful you are at your rolls, not from knowing the odds ahead of time.
I don't know, maybe it's just a personal taste thing. Maybe people who like to always know the odds are the ones who come from or prefer war/board gaming, where that happens all the time. (shrug) Aramis mentions the problem of GMs fudging rolls or difficulties, well I do that, just not all the time. My players have never complained (even strangers), because a) I don't tell them! and b) I don't do it so often that they figure it out. So if the players are complaining, I'd say that it is not that the GM is doing this, only that they are doing it poorly, and/or abusing it. The whole point is to create a satisfying story for the players, and sometimes random chance doesn't do that and you have to take control.
Trying to think of an example of where knowing the odds seems unrealistic. Suppose the character is going to disarm a bomb. It's a type they recognize, nothing difficult, and they have a good skill at this, so they know that they have a good chance at doing this. Then the GM assigns a Formidable task to the roll. Now wait a minute, the player says to themselves, why is this so hard? This wasn't so hard before, something must be wrong. Now I only have a 10% chance where I should have 80%. I'm not going to attempt the roll. Of course the real reason is that the GM decided that this bomb was booby-trapped by an expert who designed it to look simple, and that is why the more difficult task to notice that. But the character doesn't know that, until they roll to find out. So somehow the player gets information that the character should not know and it risks affecting their decisions in-game.
Or perhaps a bomb isn't the best example because it might blow up in your face. Perhaps you are trying to convince someone to do something simple, but they were told by someone else (secretly) that you were going to cheat them or something, and have thus (again, secretly) made up their mind not to trust you, or cooperate with you. You go to roll what should be a simple task, but the GM assigns a higher difficulty. Uh-oh, thinks the player, what's up? This shouldn't be so hard. Now they know something that they shouldn't know. Hopefully that will clarify this position.
Not that there is anything that can be done about it now, and I still do roll-under systems despite this (GURPS, Palladium, FASA Star Trek), and there is enough goodness in T5 that I'll do it there too (there S4, there's as much review as I think I can get away with for now
). It's just not my preference, and for this (and other) reason(s) (such as the recently mentioned roll-high).
I know what you mean about calculating your odds mentally in real life, I do it too, but this is a bad example. You may know, for example, that you have in the past defeated 40% of the muggers you have encountered, and thus in that respect have a 40% chance of succeeding against any random future mugger, but what you don't know is the specific skills and advantages in any particular case. Perhaps this guy tonight is a karate master, and your real odds of winning against this particular guy are perhaps 10%. Now against which odds is your character going to have to roll? You're going to have to roll against this guys stats, if not his rolls too, not your generic 40% chance of winning. How would you know this guy's skills until after you got your butt whipped? Therefore despite one's estimations in real life (which is like knowing your own skill level), you do not know the "true odds" against any particular throw of the dice. This goes against the argument that this is more realistic. As does S4's counter-example where after half the fight you have an idea of your odds of landing blows against someone/thing are, but not initially. That information comes from assessing how successful you are at your rolls, not from knowing the odds ahead of time.
I don't know, maybe it's just a personal taste thing. Maybe people who like to always know the odds are the ones who come from or prefer war/board gaming, where that happens all the time. (shrug) Aramis mentions the problem of GMs fudging rolls or difficulties, well I do that, just not all the time. My players have never complained (even strangers), because a) I don't tell them! and b) I don't do it so often that they figure it out. So if the players are complaining, I'd say that it is not that the GM is doing this, only that they are doing it poorly, and/or abusing it. The whole point is to create a satisfying story for the players, and sometimes random chance doesn't do that and you have to take control.
Trying to think of an example of where knowing the odds seems unrealistic. Suppose the character is going to disarm a bomb. It's a type they recognize, nothing difficult, and they have a good skill at this, so they know that they have a good chance at doing this. Then the GM assigns a Formidable task to the roll. Now wait a minute, the player says to themselves, why is this so hard? This wasn't so hard before, something must be wrong. Now I only have a 10% chance where I should have 80%. I'm not going to attempt the roll. Of course the real reason is that the GM decided that this bomb was booby-trapped by an expert who designed it to look simple, and that is why the more difficult task to notice that. But the character doesn't know that, until they roll to find out. So somehow the player gets information that the character should not know and it risks affecting their decisions in-game.
Or perhaps a bomb isn't the best example because it might blow up in your face. Perhaps you are trying to convince someone to do something simple, but they were told by someone else (secretly) that you were going to cheat them or something, and have thus (again, secretly) made up their mind not to trust you, or cooperate with you. You go to roll what should be a simple task, but the GM assigns a higher difficulty. Uh-oh, thinks the player, what's up? This shouldn't be so hard. Now they know something that they shouldn't know. Hopefully that will clarify this position.
Not that there is anything that can be done about it now, and I still do roll-under systems despite this (GURPS, Palladium, FASA Star Trek), and there is enough goodness in T5 that I'll do it there too (there S4, there's as much review as I think I can get away with for now
). It's just not my preference, and for this (and other) reason(s) (such as the recently mentioned roll-high).
