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how useful is that big table in chainmail  that lets you find your kill chance by comparing weapons to armor? you know, this one: statistical analysis let's see! first, i replicated the table in excel: then i switched from scores to hit on 2d6 to % chance. then, i compared the following categories: "light" armor:  no armor (leather is almost always an improvement "medium" armor:  average of chainmail and chainmail plus shield "heavy" armor:  average of plate and plate plus shield a positive number indicates that armor becomes more effective as it becomes heavier, whereas a negative number indicates that armor becomes less effective. for example, a battle axe becomes less effective between light and medium armor, but becomes more effective between light and heavy armor. in other words, it is specifically (slightly) more effective against chainmail than no armor at all. since this table doesn't tell the whole story, since there's the caveat that

my friend ty ( @eldritchmouse ) wrote up a great blog post about a new way to introduce memory states into random tables, called ladder tables ( link )! i wanted to share my thoughts on how to accomplish the same thing with slightly different math, with no reason other than to fit it to my own tastes, and in case someone else would find it useful. the original procedure for ladder tables (assuming one where both axes use d6) is as follows, where dA  represents a tendency towards one extreme of the table and dB  represents the other extreme: set initial index to dice  d A  +  d B . each turn, roll  d A  and  d B  again. now  d A  and  d B  represent the opposite ends of the table. if  d A  <  d B , move the index down by  d A . if  d B <  d A , move the index up by  d B . if  d A  =  d B , do not move the index up or down. there is also the case that if the index exceeds the maximum (or minimum), there is a more moderate index to which it resets. the results in a move table that l

PART 3 you know how d&d   4  was universally reviled for being a turning point in how d&d  was expected to be played, even though it made sense in hindsight of previous developments in the game and the hobby at large? anyway, i'm going to come out and say it. [1] the field of 'game design' was basically created by gary gygax to sell more books. it justified the existence of advanced dungeons & dragons  as the officially sanctioned version of the dungeon game. by virtue of this, it justified the publishing of other games where dungeons & dragons  as a 'system' did not apply. the market for tabletop role-playing games in this way justified itself  once the hobby was translated from basements to bookstores. this should not be taken to mean that capitalism was an alien thing forced onto the hobby, since the aesthetics of dungeons & dragons  are obviously drawn from the literary culture of mid-century america. it should also not be taken as something