And now the other thing I collect that I forgot to mention in the "things I collect" thread: weird-ass card decks. I'm not talking modern CCGs or the like here. I'm talking traditional cards … just traditional cards from other places.
Today I got another shipment in of weird-ass cards. The full photo essay has all the explanations and commentary. Here I'm just going to drop the photos (roughly in order from the mostly familiar to the WTF!?).
I decided that I should show the other games I've made photo-essays of.
While the first game I showed was of naval engagements in the First Sino-Japanese War (which, given what a humilation that was for China, makes this a very unusual topic for a wargame published in China), and while it is the first game by this particular person that was professionally published (by a publication company he co-founded specifically to publish it), it was not the first game he ever produced. Before this (very nice) one he self-published two other games with equally interesting and oddball topics.
The first of these two earlier games is Nanchang Uprising, a game of the titular battle that marked the first engagement of the Chinese Civil War in 1927.
Very unusually for a board wargame, the playing pieces are cut out of sheet magnet and the board is metal-backed (and yet not much heavier than a traditional cardboard playing surface). This is something I wish more wargames did.
The second of these earlier self-published works is the far more ambitious Four Crossings of Chishui. This is a major engagement that is bizarrely unheard of outside of China despite the fact that it has quite literally changed the course of world history in an earth-shattering (albeit slow-motion) way. Even the Wikipedia article on the Long March manages to overlook it.
Brief synopsis: after the Long March, the Red Army performed a grueling set of maneuvers that involved crossing a treacherous stretch of one of the Yangtze's tributaries four times in a brilliant set of battles that effectively slices and dices the Republican Army into ratshit, thus giving the Red Army their first major victory and turning the tide of the Civil War. Without this battle, the Reds would not have won China and we'd be looking at a drastically different world today.
(If you want to know more, listen to the first track of this album. You'll have to learn Mandarin first, mind…)
As with the previous game, the pieces are magnetic and one of the game boards is metallic. This metallic board is a small version of the much larger paper (sadly not card stock) map. The reason for this is that the communist forces do their movements on the smaller, magnetic map for purposes of hidden movements. They're transferred to the open map that both sides can see only once detected (usually when they attack something). It's an interesting mechanism I'd like to try out in actual play sometime.
The final game I've got a photo-essay done for is a completely different style in many dimensions than the previous three. This one is about The Chu-Hand Contention, which is an ancient war that was in its own way a historic game-changer.
See the Chu are one of the odder, and yet highly influential, cultures of ancient China. And this game is of interest to me because I live in the heart of what was once the Kingdom of Chu. The people here are … different. The Chu have always been the vaguely artistic, vaguely decadent cultural engine that influenced all of the rest of China over the ages. When they were their own kingdom they were the mildly corrupt, very wealthy, highly decadent aesthetes to the warrior kingdoms around them. They only survived as long as they did because they were rich enough to hire the best soldiers.
After the Qin escapade made the first actual quasi-unified nation in the space that is now called China (after said Qin), in its ensuing collapse two major contenders showed up to take the Qin's place. One was an offset of the Chu peoples, the other the Han. The Han won and went on to create what is effectively the basis of all subsequent Chinese culture.
As with the "four crossings" battle, the Chu-Han Contention would have made for a dramatically different world had the opposing side won. It is thus a very good subject for a decent wargame—which this one seems to be.
(As an oddity, although published in the mainland by a Beijing designer and publisher, it's printed in traditional characters. This is killing me in translating the rules.)
So, in the "what do you collect" thread I mentioned "Chinese board wargames". My latest acquisition arrived on Thursday. The best part of said acquisition is that it was free! The designer and publisher sent me a free copy. Just because I'm me.[1]
You can get the details of the game in the linked album, but the overview is here:
[1]OK, that and maybe because I kind of promised I'd translate the rules to English for him. But mostly because it's me and I'm the kind of guy people send free games to.
If you think Diplomacy is a game that ends friendships and families, never, ever look at Republic of Rome.
I watched a deep friendship, the kind that involved having each other's backs in a foxhole, brutally murdered at the hands of that game.
Remember that video about how it's OK to not like things?
I think it's time for "It's OK to like things" as a counterpart.
Holy fuck, the crazy of the fans is infecting this very thread now.
I am well aware that this is just the panel. 
A photo of the entire computer would lose the clear view of the blinkenlights though.
Sorry @Chime, @Tyche, but I win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WaYYNUCWMY
THAT is the machine to reminisce over if you want to be a dinosaur hipster.
In general, though, I agree with both of you:
I like that old time front panel.
OK, I just appear unable to leave this alone.
Reinterpreting the system to have only success/fail interpretation (as opposed to the #successes interpretation I originally used) the raw data looks something like this:
1 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 845 successes
target number 3: 681 successes
target number 4: 522 successes
target number 5: 364 successes
target number 6: 170 successes
2 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 969 successes
target number 3: 883 successes
target number 4: 732 successes
target number 5: 537 successes
target number 6: 296 successes
3 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 993 successes
target number 3: 968 successes
target number 4: 875 successes
target number 5: 698 successes
target number 6: 438 successes
4 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 998 successes
target number 3: 987 successes
target number 4: 941 successes
target number 5: 817 successes
target number 6: 528 successes
5 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 995 successes
target number 4: 967 successes
target number 5: 863 successes
target number 6: 595 successes
6 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 998 successes
target number 4: 981 successes
target number 5: 914 successes
target number 6: 665 successes
7 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 998 successes
target number 5: 942 successes
target number 6: 719 successes
8 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 996 successes
target number 5: 957 successes
target number 6: 752 successes
9 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 998 successes
target number 5: 981 successes
target number 6: 813 successes
10 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 999 successes
target number 5: 982 successes
target number 6: 829 successes
11 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 999 successes
target number 5: 992 successes
target number 6: 855 successes
12 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 995 successes
target number 6: 896 successes
13 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 997 successes
target number 6: 910 successes
14 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 992 successes
target number 6: 915 successes
15 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 998 successes
target number 6: 938 successes
16 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 1000 successes
target number 6: 958 successes
17 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 999 successes
target number 6: 959 successes
18 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 999 successes
target number 6: 968 successes
19 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 999 successes
target number 6: 972 successes
20 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 1000 successes
target number 3: 1000 successes
target number 4: 1000 successes
target number 5: 1000 successes
target number 6: 974 successes
Going with my breakpoints from before, 4d6@5 gives us 817 successes, 4d6@4 gives us 941 successes. You actually have to go to 7d6 (a +3d bonus) to get the same effect. 8d6@5 gives us 957 successes against 8d6@4's 996 successes. You have to go to 12d6 to get in the same ballpark (a +4d bonus). 2d6@5 gives 537 successes vs. 732 for 2d6@4. You have to go to somewhere between 3d6@5 and 4d6@5 (the former is too low, the latter too high) for the same effect as dice bonuses (a +1-2d bonus).
So the same general pattern holds true whether you deal with a binary success system or a stacked success system; only the skew on the relationships changes. In general the target number is a large bonus that is proportionally equal across the board for number of dice rolled. The number of dice rolled is a moderate bonus at low numbers of dice and a negligible one at high numbers.
My final analysis was "go whichever way has the effects you want". I gave the data (for one interpretation of the system) and showed some of the implications of it. The rest is up to the person designing the game.
The empiricist in me is asking "why not just write something that will roll and interpret the dice for you a hundred or a thousand times per test and then tweak the factors until you get results you're comfortable with"?
Human beings utterly SUCK at analysis of anything involving probability. (The ancient "Monty Hall puzzle" was ample evidence of this.) So remove the analysis from the equation and just simulate a hundred (or a thousand or a million) die rolls and see what oddities pop up.
So as an example, I wrote a quick script to test your dice. (The "roll()" function call is an external library I wrote which I won't put up for sake of brevity; it works pretty much the way you'd think it would.) It's nasty and dirty and not any kind of code I'd hold up as an example of brilliant programming, but it does the job.
The results are:
1 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 1000 successes
target number 2: 835 successes
target number 3: 666 successes
target number 4: 495 successes
target number 5: 320 successes
target number 6: 172 successes
2 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 2000 successes
target number 2: 1634 successes
target number 3: 1319 successes
target number 4: 994 successes
target number 5: 646 successes
target number 6: 345 successes
3 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 3000 successes
target number 2: 2493 successes
target number 3: 1984 successes
target number 4: 1493 successes
target number 5: 985 successes
target number 6: 492 successes
4 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 4000 successes
target number 2: 3378 successes
target number 3: 2692 successes
target number 4: 2012 successes
target number 5: 1365 successes
target number 6: 677 successes
5 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 5000 successes
target number 2: 4198 successes
target number 3: 3364 successes
target number 4: 2513 successes
target number 5: 1656 successes
target number 6: 817 successes
6 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 6000 successes
target number 2: 4985 successes
target number 3: 3943 successes
target number 4: 2955 successes
target number 5: 2011 successes
target number 6: 974 successes
7 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 7000 successes
target number 2: 5813 successes
target number 3: 4646 successes
target number 4: 3494 successes
target number 5: 2306 successes
target number 6: 1137 successes
8 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 8000 successes
target number 2: 6673 successes
target number 3: 5360 successes
target number 4: 4091 successes
target number 5: 2729 successes
target number 6: 1416 successes
9 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 9000 successes
target number 2: 7563 successes
target number 3: 6069 successes
target number 4: 4561 successes
target number 5: 2980 successes
target number 6: 1475 successes
10 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 10000 successes
target number 2: 8345 successes
target number 3: 6706 successes
target number 4: 4941 successes
target number 5: 3308 successes
target number 6: 1683 successes
11 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 11000 successes
target number 2: 9209 successes
target number 3: 7408 successes
target number 4: 5554 successes
target number 5: 3664 successes
target number 6: 1866 successes
12 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 12000 successes
target number 2: 10024 successes
target number 3: 8109 successes
target number 4: 6181 successes
target number 5: 4146 successes
target number 6: 2061 successes
13 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 13000 successes
target number 2: 10770 successes
target number 3: 8675 successes
target number 4: 6538 successes
target number 5: 4311 successes
target number 6: 2181 successes
14 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 14000 successes
target number 2: 11647 successes
target number 3: 9271 successes
target number 4: 6961 successes
target number 5: 4639 successes
target number 6: 2324 successes
15 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 15000 successes
target number 2: 12495 successes
target number 3: 10016 successes
target number 4: 7540 successes
target number 5: 5052 successes
target number 6: 2479 successes
16 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 16000 successes
target number 2: 13271 successes
target number 3: 10590 successes
target number 4: 8042 successes
target number 5: 5310 successes
target number 6: 2604 successes
17 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 17000 successes
target number 2: 14295 successes
target number 3: 11421 successes
target number 4: 8537 successes
target number 5: 5654 successes
target number 6: 2850 successes
18 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 18000 successes
target number 2: 15013 successes
target number 3: 11957 successes
target number 4: 8905 successes
target number 5: 5948 successes
target number 6: 3013 successes
19 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 19000 successes
target number 2: 15864 successes
target number 3: 12696 successes
target number 4: 9498 successes
target number 5: 6338 successes
target number 6: 3226 successes
20 dice tossed
----------------
target number 1: 20000 successes
target number 2: 16743 successes
target number 3: 13329 successes
target number 4: 9951 successes
target number 5: 6608 successes
target number 6: 3357 successes
From these raw results we can see a few things. If, for example, you typically throw, say, 4d6 at a target of 5, you get 1365 total successes after this thousand simulated runs. If you change the target number to 4, that jumps to 2012 successes. To equal this with bonus dice you have to go to 6 dice with a target of 5. So at 4d6 levels of dice, a -1 on the target number is equal to giving two whole dice extra rolling.
If you have 8d6 as your basis, however, things change a bit. With 8 dice tossed you can expect about 2729 successes at a target number of 5. Changing to a target number of 4 brings that up to 4091 successes. You have to go all the way to 12 dice to get an equivalent result from bonus dice. So basically doubling the number of dice thrown doubles the number of extra dice you have to throw to get equivalent effects to a single shift of target number.
Let's see if this holds true the other direction. Let's assume a basis of 2d6 with a target of 5. In the simulation that gave us 646 total successes. Lowering the target number to 4 raises that to 994 successes. We only have to go to 3d6 at a target number of 5 to equate this.
Now of course, without knowing your full intended game system, I had to make some assumptions (like that "total successes" is meaningful). If my assumptions are wrong (say there's "success" and "fail" and no stacking of success counts), I'd have to tweak my code a bit to cover the actual system, but the principle is sound: run simulations and avoid the many, many, many nasty traps of amateur statistical analysis.
Damn! Time for me to fire up Hercules so I can actually give PL/1 a try!
Not really anger, more WTF:
As much as I love Halloween, I think August is a bit early to get the candy out. That Christmas commercial I saw the other day can fuck right off too.
I learned to despise Christmas when I spotted my first, non-sarcastic (i.e. non-"Christmas in July") ZOMG CHRISTMAS IS ONLY 90 DAYS AWAY! advertisement. Since that awakening, it's become more normal to start with Christmas advertisements over 100 days before Christmas. And that before I moved away from Christmas-dominated environs 15 years ago. I shudder to think how fucking God-awful Christmas is nowadays.
Chinese board wargames.
Wind instruments.
Hard liquors.
Tea paraphernalia.
Teas.
Microcontroller unit development boards.
I had a schoolmate (I hesitate to say "friend") who had one of those psychosomatic "allergies" to cigarette smoke. At one point, in a lineup for a movie, there was a guy behind us who was smoking. My schoolmate started grousing quietly to us about how disgusting smoking was and how he was allergic and so on and so forth. Not loudly enough, note, for anybody but the two people standing next to him to hear. Meanwhile the smoker was having his own in-depth conversation with a couple of friends; he was obviously not paying attention to the guys in front of him.
Suddenly my schoolmate turned on the guy and in a loud, whiny voice shouted "DO YOU WANT ME TO PUKE ON YOU OR SOMETHING!?" He didn't even reference the cigarette or anything, just those words.
Now picture this situation from the other guy's perspective. You're standing in line for a movie talking to your friends and all of a sudden this crazy asshole shouts at you about puking on you. Is this going to induce you to put out your cigarette?
I love how people think that Rotten Tomatoes is a site that sets opinion.
They report on opinions. It's a review aggregation site. They're reporting on what a large number of CRITICS are saying.
Summer colds have long been illegal. The police will be over to arrest you for having one shortly.
ITYM "right person" there. The wrong person lets asshats get away with it.