Versus Thread Rules minor addition - Chance Based Abilities (put it all on red guys!)

[Catzlaflame]

So this discussion sprang up initially because of this thread that @Dark_Soul20189 pointed out to me, and more specifically this comment where someone argues that because X ability is “chance based,” as in there’s only a chance it’ll work, it would alter the outcome of the fight.

The question this thread aims to answer is: if there’s X ability that has, for instance, a ~70% or a 0.3% chance of landing, how would that be treated in a vs thread?

Originally I was thinking that any ability, regardless of how low the probability of it landing, should be considered since the point of these threads was to simulate the battle where a character has everything in their arsenal for that key, and because we already assume other things kinda just occur (like bloodlust for example) solely for the sake of the thread.

The glaring problem with this though is that it’s gonna make certain characters (particularly a lot of game characters), obnoxiously stronger than they would be, as Agnaa mentions.

So… a good standard would probably be that if a character has a >50% chance of landing whatever the ability, then it should be considered, and if the ability has a <50% chance of landing the thread participants should consider how many times the character can attempt the ability before they would be beaten and/or use other shit.

For example, if an ability has a 30% chance of landing, the character probably won’t land it in one go, but if they’re able to try again before their opponent can respond, they probably will. In math, that’s the complement rule. To be exact, 1 try = 30%, 2 tries = 51%, 3 tries = 65.7% etc etc.

Now (1) I don’t expect/believe that people will workout exact numbers like the above and (2) often times we’re usually not even given exact numbers like “30%” or “0.01%”

But the idea is that if you roughly recall a character landing some chance-based attack in 1/10 tries and 1/1,000,000 tries, that needs to be treated accordingly with respect to how many times the character can attempt to use the ability.

That actually brings me to my last point, characters that are just clearly pretty lucky, and land these kinda things regardless of the low probability. For example, Hakari in Jujutsu Kaisen has a 1/239 chance of landing his jackpot, but literally always pulls it off in-verse cus he actually is just lucky lmao. In this case, consider it on a case-by-case basis.

Laying down the green (0):
Put it all on red (1): Agnaa

 

[Catzlaflame]

@DontTalkDT @Mr. Bambu @LephyrTheRevanchist @Firestorm808 @DarkDragonMedeus

Any help would be appreciated.

Also, @Antvasima for awareness

 

[Agnaa]

I'm not sure how something like this should be put into the rules. It feels kinda intuitive to me.

There's various factors about battles which we can't nail down precisely. Sometimes, we're not sure which move a character would start with. Sometimes, we don't know how some characters would end up exploring a crowded environment to find their opponent. And sometimes, abilities have intrinsic randomness to the way they operate.

I think we should treat all of these similarly. We consider all the possible ways the fight could play out, and whoever wins in the majority is the winner. If there's three potential options, and they all seem equally likely, if two out of three of those lead to a character winning, that character can be declared the thread's winner.

Of course, if some probability manipulation is at play, or if a character can freely pick between many potential futures, that could forcefully change these probabilities.

I'm not really sure how to write this into the rules. It feels more like I'm arguing against something like "Assume that a character's ability always works perfectly, even if it often fails canonically" being added to the rules.

So, consider me leaning against a change being made.

 

[Catzlaflame]

It feels kinda intuitive

Not really, the fact that theres no way to actually simulate, figuratively speaking, “the rolling the die” for these abilities, makes their use entirely dependent on our standards not randomness. If there’s a 60% chance something lands, a supporter arguing that “be that as it may, there’s still a 40% chance it won’t work” is a not-so-terrible argument. And it does happen, as you can see in the message I linked.

we don't know how some characters would end up exploring a crowded environment to find their opponent.

Sometimes, we're not sure which move a character would start with

These are “chance-based” factors, yes, but the difference is that they shouldn’t give either character an advantage. You mention crowded location, but if that gives a character an edge from the get-go it shouldn’t even be an aspect of the battle. SBA states that:

Location: Central Park, New York City. The location can be left during the course of battle. If extreme advantages are generated via this location to one side, a balanced alternative should be discussed in the thread.

And same thing with the point about the move the character starts with. The character starts with the move they canonically start with. Which is why people usually ask the supporters of the other side “Hey what does X start with.”

Even in cases where the character doesn’t consistently start with something, it’s usually pretty easy to determine what to use based on other stuff like the fact that they’re bloodlusted, who their opponent is, etc.

On the contrary, for this it is quite literally just pure chance (obviosuly excluding prob manip, etc). I suppose if there is a character where we truly have zero idea what they start with (like a character who’s attacks are randomized) it would be sorta like the above but that’s pretty uncommon unlike “chance-based abilities.”

TLDR: These factors are “chance-based advantages” yes, but more intertwined with circumstance rather than the character, and the former is something we expressly limit to the best of our abilities in vs threads.

Of course, if some probability manipulation is at play, or if a character can freely pick between many potential futures, that could forcefully change these probabilities.

Yea

I'm not sure how something like this should be put into the rules

Me confusion ? By summarizing the op?

So, consider me leaning against a change being made

Gotcha, thanks for the input

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you both for helping out.

 

[DontTalkDT]

If an ability has a chance to fail, we shoudl treat it as such.
As Agnaa said, there are many chance-based factors to be considered anyway. And the extreme advantages don't generally rule those out, as those aren't, in general, extreme advantages.
In anything that doesn't have perfect information, probability is involved to account for things we don't know. E.g. Characters often don't use the same opening move 100% of the time for no discernible reason. We are not discounting the less-used ones as much as they often don't fall into weight as the less likely outcomes. That can be valuable to be kept in mind, as there can be cases where doing the most probable thing several times becomes less likely than doing at least one other action.


Anyway, my suggestion would be to add it to our list of fallacies. Just have something like

Probability Fallacy​

The Probability Fallacy is the assertion that because something is the more likely event it should be treated as the event that will happen or is the only case which is worth to be examined. This fallacy neglects that, as long as something isn't guaranteed to happen, something else could happen and that could lead to different results. This is especially important to consider if several events involving probability are present, as in that case the most probable outcome of each event may not lead to the most probably outcome overall.

And then follow up with some good examples. Like, maybe one about users of chance-based powers and another about in-character moves.

 

[FinePoint]

Agnaa makes a lot of sense to me.

We logically decide the winner of a versus thread based on probability anyway, so I think an ability with inherent randomness should simply be taken into account when internally calculating that probability, and there's no need to make an official ruling on it.

 

[Firestorm808]

I imagine things as, if we simulate 1000 fights, who wins most of them? If your attack has 30% chance of landing, only 300 of those fights would include landing that particular attack consistently.

 

[Agnaa]

Not really, the fact that theres no way to actually simulate, figuratively speaking, “the rolling the die” for these abilities, makes their use entirely dependent on our standards not randomness. If there’s a 60% chance something lands, a supporter arguing that “be that as it may, there’s still a 40% chance it won’t work” is a not-so-terrible argument. And it does happen, as you can see in the message I linked.

Yeah, if that's the only deciding factor - the 60% leads to Character A always winning, and the 40% leads to Character A always losing - Character A would win. But if there's other factors at play, say, the 60% only leads to an 80% chance of Character A winning, as Character B has a small chance to pull out a proper answer immediately, then Character B would win, as 0.6 * 0.8 = 0.48

These are “chance-based” factors, yes, but the difference is that they shouldn’t give either character an advantage. You mention crowded location, but if that gives a character an edge from the get-go it shouldn’t even be an aspect of the battle. SBA states that:

As DT says, that's only discounted in the case of extreme advantages.

My read of that is, if a character doesn't have powers in NYC don't start the battle there (unless you're matching them against another ordinary human). If the choice of location turns things into a stomp, or if the location is incredibly contrived and turns around a battle completely in a way an ordinary location wouldn't, then something more balanced should be chosen.

And same thing with the point about the move the character starts with. The character starts with the move they canonically start with. Which is why people usually ask the supporters of the other side “Hey what does X start with.”

Even in cases where the character doesn’t consistently start with something, it’s usually pretty easy to determine what to use based on other stuff like the fact that they’re bloodlusted, who their opponent is, etc.

There are cases where we have that information, but many where we don't. Video game characters that are player-controlled, have few cutscenes/lore, and where enemies don't have a pattern of weaknesses they exploit, are the best example of this.

---

I'm fine with DT's suggestion. But I'd change the header to "Appeal to Probability Fallacy", as that seems to be what it's actually called.

 

[Catzlaflame]

If an ability has a chance to fail, we shoudl treat it as such.

I mean ya, that’s Ideal of course, but the point is how do we do that exactly? Since there’s no way to:

simulate, figuratively speaking, “the rolling the die”

I was thinking that if something is more likely to happen, then assuming it will only for the sake of the thread would be an okay-ish compromise if you could call it that.

Yeah, if that's the only deciding factor - the 60% leads to Character A always winning, and the 40% leads to Character A always losing - Character A would win.

yea basically this, but isn’t this in direct contrast to what DT is saying ?

the assertion that because something is the more likely event it should be treated as the event that will happen

As DT says, that's only discounted in the case of extreme advantages.

as those aren't, in general, extreme advantages.

See but, more often than not, “the chance based abilities” do actually give extreme advantages, and can’t simply be discounted like location etc. Generally, the whole reason why something would have a low chance of landing is because it’s some super strong ability. I think it’s a pretty common trope actually.

Similar to the wild magic Agnaa mentioned, and how there’s a low probability, but it makes the character essentially omnipotent.

 

[Agnaa]

yea basically this, but isn’t this in direct contrast to what DT is saying ?

No. And I think the rest of the paragraph very clearly explains why.

 

[Antvasima]

What are the consensus conclusions here so far?

 

[Agnaa]

Even though we don't explicitly have it written down, I think we already operate in this sort of way:

We imagine many potential fights happening, based on a variety of factors where we either have incomplete information, or which are truly random. Whoever wins a majority of these should be declared the winner. Chance-based abilities would simply be another one of these factors.

 

[Antvasima]

That seems reasonable.