u/featherandahalfmusic

Always looking for new folks to listen to!

Hello! Question for any math geniuses in here (or just people who have taken more than one statistics course haha)

Please note I know *none* of this is groundbreaking

So, for reasons which I can't really explain (because I don't know), I like playing my solo ttrpg games with just six sided dice (I know, not a weird thing for folks who play outside the DND realm but I kinda do). For a long time that meant trying to reformat d20 based random generator tables to d66 tables from whatever they were, until I figured out how to roll a 20 sided dice with 2 six sided dice, and an 100 sided dice with 3 six sided dice.

For a simpler example, rolling a ten sided dice would mean rolling:

1 six sided dice (evens means start at base zero, odds means start at base 5)
another six sided dice (re roll 6's, otherwise add this number to the base of the previous dice).

So like, a "1" and a "4" would be NINE. A "4" and a "5" would be FIVE. Ect.

I know this is more complicated than it needs to be for a fun rpg game but I can't tell you why it's more fun for me.

HERE IS MY ACTUAL QUESTION: is this random?

I know that a 2d6 has a curve of likelyhood that makes the numbers in the middle of the range much more likely to be rolled than say a "2" or a "12".

Am I skewing my d10 roll by rolling it this way? Like if I keep getting evens on my first dice, which means that I keep getting results between 1 and 5 on a D10 roll, is that the same chance as rolling a d10 five times in a row and just happening to get all results under 6?

Thanks for any insight or math/predictions knowledge! Also not looking for answers from AI, thank you very much, just real folks with math wisdom : )

Looking for a few folks (probs 3) that would want to play just a few sessions centered around an adventure (I said this once and a friend of a friend said "Oh! A One Shot And Chaser!" so I am running with that now). Flexible schedule, I probably keep it to 2-3 hours per session.

The adventure is called "Treasure of the Toad Queen", and is sort of a 1st level nobodies dungeon crawl/get in/get treasure/get out sort of game.

I have never run Shadowdark before but I have run a ton games of DND from various editions of DND over the past 30 years plus some other indie TTRPGS. I like to try to be funny and also run games that are (maybe?) suspenseful so its a mixed bag mood wise. If you want to know more you can just ask questions.

I am in N Portland but can go elsewhere, would probably get the players together and then see if anyone is jazzed about hosting or playing at once of those game spots around town.

early 40's, genderqueer and gay, blah blah blah, let me know if you are interested. Good for folks who have busy lives and see postings on here and wish they could play but can't commit to weekly games.

PS - if you see folks commenting and you think the game is full, feel free to jump in, maybe a second one could appear!

I have been asked a million times for suggestions about getting folks out to see someone’s band, with quite a few more recently, and I thought I’d coagulate my notes here in case anyone found them helpful. Who am I to give advice, you might ask? If you are asking that you probably already have your own plan figured out so these might not apply to you. That’s ok! Also I don’t really give a crap about filling a room anymore, but these things worked well when I did.

(none of these are groundbreaking in any way, but I am always surprised by how many of them folks are not thinking about when they have this convo with me)

1. If you have a show with 3 bands, and each band has 4 members, and each bandmate brings 3 pals by personally inviting them to the show via text or conversation (not by social media blast) that’s 36 people. Add in playing for the other bands and you are performing for just shy of 50 people, which makes most rooms feel pretty great to play in. This requires actually mobilizing your own bandmates to put work in to bring out 3 friends/family/coworkers/whatever, as well as getting the other bands to promise to mobilize their own bandmates to bring people out. For a very small chunk of musicians for various, understandable reasons: 3 people is a big ask, but for most folks it is not a big lift that isn’t that hard to do. This requires us as musicians to know other folks: if we do not, try taking part in volunteer or mutual aid support to meet some cool folks, or go do a hobby in a group meetup (birding! Whatever!). People are generally interested in coming to shows, if you ask them directly. (36 people might not seem like much, but I see tons of shows with 4-5 bands that bring in 10 people, soooooooo yeah)
2. Figure out what context the people who will be coming to the show will actually be able to come to the show. Do folks need shows to be earlier, or do they like to party till 2am? Can attendees afford a $10-$15 bill, or does it need to be $5? Does the venue have expensive food and drink that will keep folks away? These are all conversations that you can have with the other bands to see what is possible. In my experience, some venues will not change start and stop time but SOME WILL, especially if you say it will increase the audience size for the show, which will then make the venue more money. If you think all venues do not cater to what will work for you, it is possible to research new places to play, even spots that have never run shows before, and might if you walk in and ask them. 
3. Play shows with other bands who your friends will enjoy seeing. This way instead of asking your community to come out and see you over and over again, they will instead be excited to see you AND find out about a band they didn’t know about. This increases the likelihood folks will come back by building a reputation as a band who makes something great community wise beyond just your music. 
4. Don’t play out every week. My sweet spot was once a month, but you can find your own rhythm. But if you overplay you will burn folks out and people will stop coming. If 4 bands play together who are all playing 3 shows that week, the chances of them only playing to each other are very high. (yes in a perfect world every venue would have a wonderful amount of foot traffic and we would never have to lift a finger to bring folks out but thats just not true for a ton of reasons which I am bored of writing about tbh)
5. Take a real good look at whether your band is special or not. If your goal is just playing small shows to your friends and playing with bands that you are pals with (this is my goal!) this part doesn’t matter. But if you are looking to “grow your audience” you gotta take a realistic look at your work and see if it is cut out for being a bigger project. Are you the singer and songwriter and your music just doesn’t seem to connect? Maybe your arrangement and guitar lead skills would be better suited to playing a support role to a songwriter who is more pop accessible. This part is really all about intention: if you love your music keep playing it, but try to keep in mind if you have big dreams that the music industry is not built to support everyone, for lots of terribly evil reasons.
6. Solo acts: if you are not already a popular person you are kinda fucked sorry. (This is me! Im the solo person!) if you are really worried about playing for bigger crowds you gotta get a band, most likely. The above calculations all work for solo folks as well, just scaled down (3 solo performers bring 3 friends, everyone gets to play for 10-11 people, still a fun show in my book, but maybe not for everyone else)
7. Communicate expectations with both the other acts performing as well as the venue before confirming the gig as 100% booked so that everyone knows what’s going on. Make sure you ask performers what time slot will work best for them in terms of bringing people out before booking them. Alternatively, make sure bands are willing to shoot for getting folks who will come for the whole time (this loops back to point #2, figure out how to book a show that is meant to be experienced from beginning to end: what is too long for folks? Would your band rather play an hour for an empty house or 30 minutes for an audience?)
8. If you have been doing something for five years and it’s still not working, try something new. Change something about your project. 
9. Support your local music scene and other bands and be involved but count other musicians coming to see you as a bonus. Many musicians are broke and depending on how busy someone is, they might never be able to come see you play, no matter how many times you go to see them play. You going to see someone play ten times in a row doesn’t mean they gotta come to your show if they aren’t that interested in your band. I relate to these feelings as I used to feel them, but honestly my relationship to my music just got better when I stopped trying to play that game. I am saying this as someone who goes to shows all the time and also has a lot of wonderful musician friends come to my (admittedly, intentionally: smaller) shows.
10. Flyers are great but not for getting individual people out to individual shows unless there is something special about that show that is listed on the flyer that relates to them. Flyers CAN be great as long term campaigns to get your bands name into the collective consciousness of folks walking around town, which maybe might make them more likely to come see your band in a “why not?” Kind of sense. 
11. If someone does come to your show, ask them how they found out about it, and ask them if they would like to know about future shows, and how best they would like to be informed about that. Do whatever they say.

❤️ ❤️ ❤️ wishing you well in whatever musical endeavors matter to you ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

edit: I guess everyone else already knew this, and I just never noticed lol

I am currently playing SF2 for the hundredth time but for the first time in probably ten years. And since the past decade I have gotten involved a bit more in game design (just shitty little indie games) which has lead me to read different people's takes on how game mechanics do storytelling, so I notice different things about the game now than the last time I played it.

One example: today I was playing the the fight in the desert after the Hassan, before the big armor guy. I was just using it as a grinding level to get all my little guys and gals up to level 20 before I continue because, why not.

While doing so I noticed something I never noticed before: Peter is not able to fly over the biggest mountains on the map, but Luke can. I don't know if this is ever mentioned in game through conversation or text exploration, that Luke is able to fly higher than Peter can, but it is interesting how little mechanics like this tell a story. (edit: Peter hurt his wing, duh)

Thats it! I just thought it was neat and had no one to tell it to, haha.