What PHD Do You Need To Play...

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David Johansen

David Johansen

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So, needing a Piled Higher and Deeper degree to play games is a known issue, but which degree do you need to play specific games.

GURPS contrary to popular opinion you don't need a phd in mathematics to play GURPS but you do need a phd in GURPS.

Rolemaster requires a phd in hand writing, without it the character sheets will never be readable.

Traveller requires a different phd for each edition: computer science for classic because the computers are still running on FORTRAN, polidtical science for MegaTraveller to make sense of the metaplot, theoretical physics for Traveller the New Era to understand how you can fit fuel for the jump drive and HePlar drive in the same hull the ship used in prior edtions, Marc Miller's traveller requires a degree in English proof reading, really someone should have had one, Traveller 5 requires a degree in Marc Miller because if you can't understand Marc Miller, you can't understand T5, rest assured there's a sixteen digit extension to the six digit code for that.

Hero requires a degree in American Pop Art to understand the antecedents and implications of the movement rules.
 
The joke goes that the farmer sends his kid to school and the kid comes home and tells him he's got his BS. Well the farmer knows what that is. After a couple years the kid gets his MS and the farm figures it's More of the Same. When the kid gets the PHD the farmer figures it means Piled Higher and Deeper.

Runequest requires a degree in comparative religion to be able to discern between BRP and Mythrus

Dark Heresy also requires a phd in comparative theology to discern between Rogue Trader Era and modern Fluff.
 
Space Opera requires a music degree if you ever hope to hit the high notes. Alternately you will need an intellectual property law degree to avoid being sued for using Space Marines as the combat system.

Vampire The Masquerade requires a history degree to truly understand the tragedy of your character's backstory. Possibly a psychology degree as well to diagnose the designers and understand the intent of the rules.

Fudge requires a food sciences degree. (edit sorry couldn't help myself. also, mmmmm fudge)

Aftermath requires a theatre degree so you can convince the other players that you understand the rules.
 
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David Johansen said:
Aftermath requires a theatre degree so you can convince the other players that you understand the rules.
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Or just some experience in poker...:grin:

Also, The Riddle of Steel doesn't require a PhD in history, nor any kind of degree in HEMA, contrary to popular belief:tongue:!
It just strongly promotes getting those...:thumbsup:


And last but not least, all the Star Wars RPG don't require a PhD in Star Wars Lore, unless you're playing with avid fans. In which case, you're better off heading to one of their communities to get your degree in order:devil:!
 
TristramEvans said:
well, it can all be summed up as: "it doesn't"
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Yes, this:thumbsup:.

Now, if you want to be able to calculate the exact odds, you'd need a good calculator, like the one on your phone. But on the rest, the more dice you have, the better your odds are.

And that' really as much as most people need to understand, anyway:shade:.
 
AsenRG said:
Yes, this:thumbsup:.

Now, if you want to be able to calculate the exact odds, you'd need a good calculator, like the one on your phone. But on the rest, the more dice you have, the better your odds are.

And that' really as much as most people need to understand, anyway:shade:.
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I said 'early' for a reason - the interaction of dice pool size, difficulty, and the botch rule resulted in some perverse effects at certain pools size/difficulty combinations. It also meant that sometimes it just wasn't worth looking for ways to make a roll 'better', and that could be worth knowing. As could how splitting your actions would affect your chances.

Or - how nerds made the 'cool' goth types look ineffectual in-game. Well, aside from the goths who were maths majors.
 
Tunnels & Trolls (Monsters! Monsters!, etc.): Theoretical physics to the deal with the contradictions, superpositions, uncertainty and &*@! unknown/random of the rules creators and IP owners. Pulling our string theory anyone? Third party creators are like that poor cat--even if still alive, it's still in a box.
 
OSR. While the actual games are simple, you need an advanced communications degree to write massive forum/blog posts rehashing osr history, gameplay philosophy, and of course correcting everyone else's understanding of what the osr *really* is.

Time spent in OSR hobby:
10% playing games
15% hacking osr rulesets to invent *exactly* the game you wished existed (because the 734 existing iterations of the simple rulesets don't quite hit the mark)
25% writing blog and forum posts about osr history and philosophy.
50% correcting everyone else's faulty understanding of the OSR movement.
 
goats said:
OSR. While the actual games are simple, you need an advanced communications degree to write massive forum/blog posts rehashing osr history, gameplay philosophy, and of course correcting everyone else's understanding of what the osr *really* is.

Time spent in OSR hobby:
10% playing games
15% hacking osr rulesets to invent *exactly* the game you wished existed (because the 734 existing iterations of the simple rulesets don't quite hit the mark)
25% writing blog and forum posts about osr history and philosophy.
50% correcting everyone else's faulty understanding of the OSR movement.
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+ 12% correcting other pubbers because their percentages actually add up to 100% and when does that happen at the table?
 
Sharrow said:
I said 'early' for a reason - the interaction of dice pool size, difficulty, and the botch rule resulted in some perverse effects at certain pools size/difficulty combinations. It also meant that sometimes it just wasn't worth looking for ways to make a roll 'better', and that could be worth knowing. As could how splitting your actions would affect your chances.

Or - how nerds made the 'cool' goth types look ineffectual in-game. Well, aside from the goths who were maths majors.
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Except for the case of Difficulty 10 (only a 10 is a success, yet a 1 subtracts a success, should never be used in play), having more dice always results in success more often. The higher difficulties did have situations where there is a curve where failures are more likely to be botches (rolling 2 dice botches more often than rolling 1 die at Difficulty 7 & 8, for example), but still, rolling 2 dice means higher chance of success than one die, and rolling more dice means more success in every situation (aside from the "this should never be used" Difficulty 10 situation). I can't think of a situation where, "it just wasn't worth looking for ways to make a roll 'better'"
 
Eclipse Phase, 1st Edition.

Changing bodies (morphs) changes your stats which changes your skills and derived attributes.

There is a lot more setting wise as well.
 
goats said:
Time spent in OSR hobby:
10% playing games
15% hacking osr rulesets to invent *exactly* the game you wished existed (because the 734 existing iterations of the simple rulesets don't quite hit the mark)
25% writing blog and forum posts about osr history and philosophy.
50% correcting everyone else's faulty understanding of the OSR movement.
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I'd like to dispute that, but you've summed up my experience pretty well. It's a good thing I enjoy hacking rulesets, writing blogposts and correcting people.
 
Rolemaster and Exalted require PhDs in library science to find and organize everything correctly. And a Psychiatry PhD later for dealing with traumatized players.

"Show us on the diagram where the rule set touched you..."

"My bag of d10s; I don't wanna look at them anymore! Who uses all 16 pages of the character sheet?!"
 
RangerRupert said:
CoC requires a PhD in archeology with Latin on the side.
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And Dresden Files Fate (or any Dresden game if there are others) requires that you failed your dissertation defense in Latin. (Fuego that committee! [Insert Life of Brian clip on correcting Latin grammar])

Malckuss said:
Rolemaster and Exalted require PhDs in library science to find and organize everything correctly.
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Dangerous Journeys would ask you to hold its beer, but it can't find it or even remember which rulebook it ended up in.
 
Skarg said:
Sounds like hyperbolic nonsense propagated by gamers who are lazy and/or have trouble with basic arithmetic.
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Skarg said:
Sounds like hyperbolic nonsense propagated by gamers who are lazy and/or have trouble with basic arithmetic.
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Wasn't there a game by and for NASA scientists that required players to solve quadratic equations?
 
David Johansen said:
Honestly, I think some people might have missed that they were supposed to be silly.
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Yeah, that's why I wasn't offended, outraged and trying to incite an online mob of math teachers to block your account on social media:grin:!



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It's when someone tells me in serious conversation that basic arithmetic is HARD, that's when I start getting cognitive dissonance...:thumbsup:


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AsenRG said:
It's when someone tells me in serious conversation that basic arithmetic is HARD, that's when I start getting cognitive dissonance...:thumbsup:


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I've had people tell me seriously that a game running on d20 blackjack mechanics with no math is "harder than" d&d 5e math because of something about people having to calculate probability.
 
I've seen RPG people complain about subtraction, numbers higher than 9, tracking rations, ammo, healing, money, weight . . . not to mention "what do I need to roll - wait, I'm hunting for it on my character sheet . . ." in simple games with basic tasks their PC keeps doing over and over, that involve no modifiers. Like they can't/don't remember, and it's an effort to find, the number 12, for a basic axe hack attack they keep doing.

That's partly why as GM I am happy to track and roll for them, since I can resolve, and describe the results of their attack before they even find their dice.
 
Kage2020 said:
I work with cybersecurity specialists and, as a general rule, they totally suck at using computers.
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Sounds like a bunch of "consultants" who sold their credentials to management without the ability to do real work.

On topic: You need a game design phd to run Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e because, while it is a reasonably functional game thats pretty fun, it is a 100% homebrew hack-a-thon that was dropped on April first on 4chan. A number of parts were obviously not play tested and a few others weren't math checked.
 
Telok said:
Sounds like a bunch of "consultants" who sold their credentials to management without the ability to do real work.
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I would imagine that they're more management/policymakers, yet it still surprises me. Anyway, as you note that's OffT...
 
Telok said:
Sounds like a bunch of "consultants" who sold their credentials to management without the ability to do real work.
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So, nothing unusual, and we should include more of that kind of NPCs in cyberpunk RPGs...:shade:
 
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