[Torg] Why 0-21? Or why not?

[Travis James Hall]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com 
> [mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of 
> Jasyn Jones
> Sent: Wednesday, 24 February 2010 9:11 AM
> 
> On Feb 23, 2010, at 2:10 PM, Dominick Riesland wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 4:31 PM, Jasyn Jones 
> <jasynj at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> >> On Feb 22, 2010, at 1:55 PM, Dominick Riesland wrote:
> 
> >>> The rules as they stand (Basic Rulebook and R&E) assume there is a
> >>> quantitative aspect to the Axiom Charts. The reconnection 
> values are
> >>> based on the Axiom Levels of the cosms involved,
> >> 
> >> A 0-10 scale is quantitative, based on your own 
> definition. Any numeric scale would be, because it provides numbers.
> > 
> > No, all numeric scales *can be* quantitative, if they produce valid
> > numbers in the formula for which they are intended.
> 
> All of the discussion of "quantitative" vs. "qualitative" is 
> just a complicated way of making this point:
> 
> "I have a House Rule on reconnection that generates specific 
> DN's, and I require any alternate chart, when used with the 
> same formula, to generate substantially the same DN's."

He might have a house rule for this, but the standard method of generating
reconnection DNs, provided by WEG, does involve a formula based on the
actual axiom values. (It also involves a fudge factor, to take into account
variables other than axioms, but that really doesn't matter to this.)

And has been pointed out already, there are a few other mechanics that make
direct use of axiom values. Each of those mechanics translate into
probabilities that could be measured from within the Torg game world.

Probabilities are quantitative values. The variables that determine them are
either quantitative values or effectively so in a case like this.

> No House Rules anyone has written on any subject have been 
> taken into account when creating my 0-21 charts. I didn't try 
> and support them, and if they depend on numeric Axiom ratings 
> largely identical to those of the current charts, there's a 
> good chance my charts won't support your House Rule.

What about the standard, WEG-supplied rules that use axioms directly? There
really are a few.

And that's where the rubber meets the road in terms of your house rules and
their applicability to anybody else's games (or one such place, anyway). If
they want their game mechanics to remain otherwise unchanged, they need an
equivalent of those mechanics if they are going to use your charts.

> So "highest level of tool above land" + "1 per each 
> additional character's level above land" + "0-3 modifier 
> based on previous calculation" + "arbitrary fudge factor" = Number.
> 
> And "Number" is then indirectly observed by measuring actual 
> reconnection failures/successes, then accumulating a large 
> enough statistical universe to allow the reverse engineering 
> of the formula behind the Number, which then leads to 
> discovering the Axiom level of every tool on the charts. 
> (Including "credit", "More Perfect Society", and "Science".)
> 
> And this same process is used to determine fractional Axiom levels.
> 
> Such a theory seems too complicated, too indirect, too 
> unlikely to be succeed to be of use. It also involves 
> problematic conflation of "in-game" and "out-of-game" 
> knowledge. If there were some "real" quantification measured 
> by the Axiom charts, this couldn't be it.

That's not really any more difficult than what has been done to measure
various things in the real world, in fields like subatomic physics,
astrophysics, or just plain practical statistics. Not likely to be done,
since there's a war on and pretty much everyone is focussing on more
practical matters. However, when examining the difference between a
qualitative scale and a quantitative scale, the actual measurement doesn't
have to be done. It's enough to know that it could be done.

Anyway, if direct measurability by characters in Torg's fictional universe
is what you require to dub a Torg scale "quantitative", we already have
that. Thratchen is shown in the first Torg novel to have a device that
measures the Tech axiom.

And on top of that, measuring the success rate of invocations and
determining Spiritual axiom ratings from that would be much easier. There's
only one variable to take into account there.

> > I use the "effect on reconnection and long-range contradiction
> > difficulty" to measure. Taking three benchmarks off isn't likely to
> > change the formulas much. Taking 10 off (about 1/3) shrinks the
> > differences by the same percentage and would require a 
> "fudge factor"
> > to bring them close to the original.
> 
> Which is already there: "If the total you arrived at is 0-5, 
> add +3; 6-10, add +2; 11-15, add +1." (Pg. 90, IU2) 
> Substituting another formula for this one changes nothing. 
> The chart would still be quantitative.

This is true. However, I don't recall you providing a substitute formula.
(Which doesn't mean you never did. I just don't remember it.)

Without one such being provided, there is no guarantee that your alternative
benchmarks would map to similar values for reconnection difficulties using
any practical formula - that is, we don't know whether there's a suitable
formula that provides the same DNs for Aysle vs Earth, Aysle vs Cyberpapacy,
etc.

> >> If we use the same text of the current chart, but reduce 
> the empty entries in between, at what point does it cease 
> being quantitative and become qualitative? And what rule 
> would one use to discern the difference?
> > 
> > It ceases to be qualitative the moment it can't be used for 
> > formulaic comparison.

I'm pretty sure there's a typo there.

> So, despite what you said above, the actual definition of 
> "quantitative" is "can be used to generate game mechanical numbers."

That's not what I'd call a definition. More a sufficient but not necessary
determinant property.

> So, if it had 1 entry it wouldn't qualify. Because any chart 
> with 2 or more numeric levels could be used to do so.

Sure, but not necessarily anything remotely resembling the standard game
mechanical numbers.

> > I was
> > merely pointing it out as an option. (It could even be 
> argued that the
> > fact that a 0-10 scale necessitates fractions is a powerful argument
> > against it).
> 
> This is an unproven assertion: "A 0-10 scale necessitates 
> fractional axiom ratings."

That would be why he said "could even be argued", rather than claiming that
it is necessarily true. That's the sort of thing one says when one is
pointing out that discussions in an area are possible without wanting to go
down that road right now.

Travis Hall