Talisman by statistics
So my boyfriend and I played Talisman this evening. We both got to the Crown of Command. He had 2 more strength than me, but I was a warrior so could roll 2 dice and pick the highest. He had the Runesword so could take 1 of my lives every time he killed me, but I had armour, so if he won I had a 50% chance of not dying.
Once we finished the game we spent half an hour calculating what each persons probability of winning was. For each dice roll I had a 0.58 probability of losing the battle, but only a 0.29 probability of losing a life. He had a 0.27 probability of losing a life. When we add in the Runesword statistically he gains 0.023 lives per round while I lose 0.29 lives per round.
If I was able to roll 3 dice and chose the highest number then I lose 0.25 lives per round and he loses 0.08 lives per round.
We are now contemplating playing an entire game without using dice for battles, and instead using statistics.
This is definitely the nerdiest way I have spent an evening in a long time. Has anyone else done anything similar?
Posted Jun 16, 2012, 11:07 AM UTC
Pretty cool post. Can you clarify how you would generate statistics without the dice? If you just mean to base it on levels, it seems like the person with higher strength/craft would always win. If you just mean to weight your chances of winning according to the level difference, why eliminate the dice since they functionally do this already?
Well it would be more like, if I have strength 6 and no armour and I draw a dragon, then I expect to lose 0.28 lives. So I would lose 0.28 lives. We would use excel or something to calculate and keep track of it.