One of the learning moments in TRPGs was probablity vs Actual.
Its like getting angry at the weatherman when he says 95% was going to happen and the contrary happens.
A high probability doesnt not equate to actual outcomes. it can Indicate.*
I may have a 16 in GURPS whichis a 98% chance of success but that doesnt mean I’ll succeed and in real life scenarios penalties easily compound and complicate – the “IDEAL” scenario so rare and mostly theoretical. Just look at how much TIME we really need to take to appraoch uncertainty with dilligence and already we see how much we take forgranted.
I may have an 80-90% stat success BUT i’ve been in games where I failed so often.
I’ve had a game where i had a 10% chance of success and Succeeded when it mattered. I’ve had a GAME plot that assumed to go a certain way on a 98% chance (Only a critical success would change the outcome of a scene; but not the outcome of the session).
TRPGs taught me about probability – how to use it to make informed decisions – and how to ACCEPT the outcome. In a situation where I had nothing to lose, get to spend time with people, and laugh about all the failures and mistakes.
*this is a Financial Disclaimer that PAST PERFORMANCE doesnt guarantee future performance.
What would REALITY look like if probability GUARANTEED outcome? That would be weird wouldnt it. Take the mental bias or misunderstanding and use it as an ASSUMPTION of reality – when ever something had a 51% chance of succeess its pretty much guaranteed – wouldnt that violate even the defintion or the logic of what meant to be probable? If Complexity did not drive the uncertainty that causes us to be unable to see all the factors? That would be so weird. If apples were chairs, and rocks be systax, – when I use my empathy to play substitution – replacing some factor with another I notice the whole thing falls apart.
And yet people will attribute a probablity to a certainty – and then we realize this is not a Statistical and Probability Bias but an Expectation and Emotional bias – We want something to be true despite contradictory information. When someone believes something is Factually or OBjectively true based on their emotional investment in it to be true – how can we approach this? Its sad – it is difficult to accept 难受 – when we are so fallible that to know we’re wrong and to be able to correct ourselves we have to BREAK APART ourselves and our beliefs to be able to audit its components. We have to open the Laptop/PC/Phone/aircon/hood of the car to inspect its components and individually test them. We have to be open to be being able to re-examine our components and replay all our faulty imperfections back.
a bad roll will always be difficult to accept – even if I knew I had a low chance. this teaches so much about myself. Imagine learning any skill is a TON of bad rolls (Sucking at something is the begining of getting good at anything – Jake the dog) – this is probably true to many aspects of life – Imagine if Life is a Skill that we can be better at and how we appraoch the Uncertainty of every roll – determines if we enjoy the experience of the Game or Life. And enjoying it is not just the pleasure of getting our way and succeeding – but also the adaptation and changes that is brought about by adversity. Adaptation and Change is always painful in some way.
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