"Never Tell Me the Odds" Topic

Assuming you are not Han Solo, to what degree do you like to be aware of the odds of successful outcome (contextually defined) of a decision you are making?

Gross – I like to know if I am better or worse than 50/50

Rough – 25% bins, i.e. 1-4, 2-4, 3-4, sure thing, never-never

d6 – I want to know odds at roughly a 16.6% resolution

d10 – ~10% bins

d20 – I need 5% granularity (or better!)

Annoying Space Opera Computer Calculated – If it's not at least six decimal places, it's not good enough

Obviously, this is contextual by decision type, so feel free to describe what contexts you think are important. Your wants in this area are also likely dependent on what you consider the "outcome". I would guess people would want a more precise feel for the odds for the immediate outcome (Will these rounds destroy the bridge?) than the longer-range outcomes (Will destroying the bridge cripple the enemy's maneuver?).

While in scenario design, I run numbers approaching the Annoying Space Opera Computer, even then, I don't really care about all the precision and put things into bins.

For immediate outcomes (full effect this turn or next), I prefer the 25% bins level.

Or, I like it Rough.

I base my gaming decisions on what will give me the maximum advantage and cause the largest disruption of my opponents plan. There has to be a reasonable chance of success however before I will do it. Say 35% chance of success and higher. If you are truly thinking ahead however you should be able to greatly improve your chances of success by making sure you have the proper assets available to help your plan. So I guess I fall into the Rough camp as well.

I try to make a plan, mostly based on me rolling poorly.

Rough odds are good enough for me. Anything more and everything slows to a crawl while we pull out the slide rules and trig formulas.

The problem I have is that I need to convert actual odds to ‘it's me rolling the dice' odds. And that seems to fluctuate so much that it makes true odds calculation difficult, if not impossible. Depending on how hot I am rolling (and I say that ironically), my odds tend to run from ‘you wish' to ‘not a bats chance in hell.' That usually means for me that 3:1 odds in my favor can be anywhere from 1:3 to 1:20 or worse.

I don't care, I'll screw up the roll anyway! LOL

Don't care. I'll charge my light brigade into Russian cannons no matter what.

This is kind of like "Anything but a 1!"
"Do you feel lucky, Punk?"

Roll the dice, then add and/or subtract the modifiers and hope ! But let's admit it if you need a 6 to hit, etc. the odds are not in your favor, etc.

When designing rules/scenarios, you need to know them, or at least I do.

I really don't think gamers should know the odds, since you don't in real life. Perhaps just generalizations should suffice, with a rough idea of if something is easy, moderately difficult, hard, or nigh on impossible.

~10% bins for me. It lines up nicely with the intelligence community's Words of Estimative Probability link and is both useful and quick to grasp.

I don't like to have to think about the odds.

Words of Estimative Probability

People have moved on to providing the definitions of the WEP they use at the end of reports, rather than relying on the audience understanding them.

As streetgang6 points out, this question is really about the granularity of your mental model with respect to odds. How many words are in your WEP?

I have a hard time believing people don't care or think about the odds. There may be some perception bias that "thinking about the odds" involves slide rules and grinding through calculations. It can. It doesn't have to.

The "Rough" scale I use is:

I expect through experience, possibly supplemented by some calculations …

Probably – the thing will happen 3 of 4 times or more.
Should – the thing will happen more than half the time, but not much more often.
Maybe – the thing happens less than half the time, but not completely unexpected
I'm going for it anyway – less than roughly 1 in 4 odds of the thing happening
Bad Rules – mathematically impossible to happen

I like to know the odds, just so I can point out how my brilliant plans are let down by the dice.