In any situation which includes a high degree of uncertainty, there is fertile ground for the formation of superstitions. People have a strong desire to make the world around them comprehensible, and to derive from that a sense of control over systems which are highly complex and mostly hidden from their view.
Games like chess are less likely to produce superstitions because, while the possible moves are very complex and an opponent's mind is a closed system, the mechanics produce calculable results. Throw in extra layers of complexity or randomness to make a system effectively incalculable (without lots of observational tools and experimentation) and you can count on many players creating the equivalent of rituals to ensure a successful hunt.
Even the best batters in baseball have an objectively poor (30%-40%) percentage of hits, and the sport is well-known for its odd superstitions; like a player refusing to change his 'lucky' socks mid-series, no matter how nasty they may get. Gambling for money is also known for promoting superstitious behaviour and a variety of statistical fallacies; regression to the mean misunderstood becomes the gambler's fallacy that new result is 'due' after a streak of opposite results.
Stakes are quite a bit lower in tabletop gaming, but players still have 'lucky' dice and will change sets after just a few poor rolls. In my local Pathfinder Society lodge, there are quite a few players that think it's somehow 'unlucky' to roll a die on your character sheet or indeed, any surface besides directly on the table.
One might expect online games to cause a lower degree of superstitious behaviour because you're dealing with calculations happening on a machine with strictly-defined rules, but they seem to attract more superstition for all its calculable reality, probably because players seem to assume a higher degree of complexity in closed systems. The personal inability to predict results due to poor data access seems to be interpreted as actual incalculable complexity.
An exception may be WoW, which allows UI mods that can collect lots of data impartially without the confirmation bias and other cognitive heuristic errors to which human minds are prone, but I've still heard of it happening there in situations where the 'stats' are inaccessible or non-existent. Some players assumed certain classes or even certain character names affected the quality of randomly-generated loot, and even refused to believe devs that told them such factors didn't matter. Shades of 'government cover-up' conspiracies, perhaps?
A couple of my favourite examples of MMO superstition happened in Ultima Online. One of them was based on the success rates of catching fish with the earliest version of the fishing skill. Any time a new player used a fishing pole object and targeted a water tile, they had a basic 50% chance to catch a fish, but some players dreamed up a complex system of modifiers. They were sure that wearing a wide-brimmed fishing hat helped, or that certain water tiles were 'luckier' than others. The products of their fishing efforts played into another superstition; the belief that fish cakes were the 'best' food for enhancing one's rate of skill gain. Later updates to the game changed fishing and cooking skills that may have added a little truth to these beliefs, but originally there was nothing to them.
The original EQ kept its numbers hidden wherever it could, and was full of superstitious beliefs about how the world worked. When you were playing the most efficient (and boring) way of camping on a spawn point, some players insisted that you couldn't stand too close or leave junk items on monster corpses because you'd slow down the spawns. Neither belief was true, but refusal to play along could result in being kicked from a group, and in early EQ soloing was directly correlated with lots of death and experience loss.
City of Heroes would put on a 'Trick or Treat' event each Halloween, and many players believed you'd get more treats if you were wearing certain costumes or actually spoke the phrase "trick or treat" in chat before checking a door. At least that game's lack of traditional equipment items tended to limit the assumption that another's actions could affect your own rewards, so groups seemed less prone to 'shun the unbelievers'.
Dungeons & Dragons Online had one of the most bizarre superstitions; players would insist on the character with the highest Diplomacy skill (used in that game to reduce one's threat on a enemy aggro list) to use it on every chest found in an instance before anyone touched it. It made no sense at all, but it was occasionally funny to see people cringing in front of their loot boxes. The devs eventually had to disable the ability to use Diplomacy with an invalid target selected. They hoped to get players to stop doing uncooperative things like refusing to join a group that didn't have a high-diplo character, but of course, the players screamed bloody nerfer about it.
This blog post and its comments mention these and other MMO superstitions: Terra Nova - Superstition
If you know of other collections or discussions of MMO superstitions, please provide links. ☺
Some of the comments on the above blog argue about whether the observed behaviours should rightly be referred to as 'superstitious', or whether they should be called something else, like 'urban legends'. Personally, I think the behaviours are similar enough to real-world superstitions to call them such. An example of a game-related urban legend is discussed in the following podcast & article link, since it's a story about events that supposedly happened at one time, but aren't an assertion about how the world works in general: Skeptoid 362 - Polybius
What are some examples of gaming superstitions you've encountered or been affected by? Tales of your favourite set of 'charmed' dice are rather prosaic, so let's try to avoid focusing on those too much. One idea which actually worried me doe a while was the idea that character names might be used in the RNG seed and my history of unimpressive loot could be a result of the name(s) I'd chosen. I suppose it seemed similar to the "Wi flag" from Asheron's Call, but was more likely due to the fact that I had a low tolerance for running the same static content over and over until I got the 'good' item I wanted.
Do you think gaming superstitions are good for an MMO? Should PFO specifically try to make its systems obscure in order to promote a high degree of unfounded speculation, or would you prefer to know where you stand with the mechanics and leave the inscrutable closed-system complexity to the "meaningful human interaction" dimension of the game?
Do you think your preference is strongly influenced by your local real-world culture? Some cultures tend to attribute success to un-controllable things like 'luck', 'fate', & 'innate talent' while others attribute success to effort-based factors like 'hard work' & 'developed skills'.
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I think the primary one that comes to mind is the general belief that (Though fallacious) given failure, directly succeeding attempts will have a better than average chance of success.
Also the general idea that jumping/dodging everywhere/all the time is 1) Tactically useful, and 2) Helps you get places faster.
Had a player at my tabletop group consistently roll very high (four, count them, four! 18s, and two 17s during character creation). Literally half his rolls threatened crits. It was attributed to superstition when, in fact, he was simply adept at manipulating how his dice fell. Those who weren't gullible fools just went along with it because we preferred that he participate than be down a man.
The DM was still a gullible fool, though.
All sorts of obnoxious baloney was thrown when I suggested we look into using 3d6 instead of a single d20. Phrases like "but then you can't nat 20!" and "what about crits?!" and "but then you'd roll higher, and we like it when it's random!" were uttered. I can only wish I were paraphrasing. The worst was that people got emotional about it. It threatened something deeper than just gaming, I'm certain of it.
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That Wi Flag business is hilarious. Years of anecdotal evidence were right, after all.
In Guild Wars 2, the developers have stated that the Magic Find statistic only boosts your chance of finding better loot on the bodies of enemies, and has no effect on the loot in treasure chests. Some people still believe that the stat applies to chests. (Others repeat what the developers said every time they spot a believer.)
I play the Solitaire game that's bundled with Windows with the scoring off, no timer, and no limit to the number of times I can cycle through the deck. I sometimes suspect that after I lose several games in a row, the computer deals the cards in a way that's "win-able" just to keep me interested in playing. I know that if I played standard casino Solitaire, I'd win a whole lot less often, but that doesn't give me more confidence in the random number generator.
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All sorts of obnoxious baloney was thrown when I suggested we look into using 3d6 instead of a single d20. Phrases like "but then you can't nat 20!" and "what about crits?!" and "but then you'd roll higher, and we like it when it's random!" were uttered. I can only wish I were paraphrasing. The worst was that people got emotional about it. It threatened something deeper than just gaming, I'm certain of it.
Even assuming that the dice aren't loaded, or being thrown with "finesse", 3d6 does have a different probability distribution than 1d20. Gary Gygax even included a graph of the 3d6 distribution in the 1st Edition Players Handbook. (Years later, HOL used the same graph to a) make fun of D&D, and b) scare players away from reading something that only the GM "should" read.)
d20 - 5% chance of each number from 1 to 20.
3d6 - 16.7% chance of each number from 1 to 6 on each of the three dice. Rolling three dice and adding them changes the probabilities of rolling each number from 3 to 18, as opposed to "rolling a 16 sided die" and adding 2. The net effect is a higher chance to roll numbers in the middle of the spread and a lower chance to roll very high or very low (and no chance to roll 1, 2, 19, or 20, of course).
From about.com:
Probability of a sum of 3: 1/216 = 0.5%
Probability of a sum of 4: 3/216 = 1.4%
Probability of a sum of 5: 6/216 = 2.8%
Probability of a sum of 6: 10/216 = 4.6%
Probability of a sum of 7: 15/216 = 7.0%
Probability of a sum of 8: 21/216 = 9.7%
Probability of a sum of 9: 25/216 = 11.6%
Probability of a sum of 10: 27/216 = 12.5%
Probability of a sum of 11: 27/216 = 12.5%
Probability of a sum of 12: 25/216 = 11.6%
Probability of a sum of 13: 21/216 = 9.7%
Probability of a sum of 14: 15/216 = 7.0%
Probability of a sum of 15: 10/216 = 4.6%
Probability of a sum of 16: 6/216 = 2.8%
Probability of a sum of 17: 3/216 = 1.4%
Probability of a sum of 18: 1/216 = 0.5%
The results are still random, just not evenly distributed.
Rolling 3d6 to generate ability scores tends to result in characters who are mostly average, with maybe a couple of high or low stats. (Personally, I prefer point buy systems over random stat systems, but that's a different topic.)
Rolling d20 to hit (before modifiers) gives every swing (by the same character, with the same weapon, against the same enemy, in the same conditions) the same chance to connect.
Rolling 3d6 to hit would mean you'd have lots of so-so attacks. Critical hits would be more rare than if you rolled 1d20 (how rare would depend on the crit range of the weapon). Fumbles (if you're using them) would also be more rare than if you rolled 1d20.
Coming from a MUD background, I (and heaps of others) always had to have my inventory in just the right order so that when you typed 'inventory', everything looked just right. It was always painful when you found loot you wanted to equip that 'belonged' on the bottom of your inventory and you had to drop everything and pick it up in the right order. Bonus for thieves though :)
I play the Solitaire game that's bundled with Windows with the scoring off, no timer, and no limit to the number of times I can cycle through the deck. I sometimes suspect that after I lose several games in a row, the computer deals the cards in a way that's "win-able" just to keep me interested in playing. I know that if I played standard casino Solitaire, I'd win a whole lot less often, but that doesn't give me more confidence in the random number generator.
I would not be surprised to learn that a game might have that kind of functionality build in. "Random" numbers in computer software has always been a sore point because there really isn't such a thing as a random number. And random number simulation can get funky.
I remember in City of Heroes, they had to introduce a "streak breaker" functionality into the to-hit calculations because people were observing that they would occasionally miss a lot more than their to-hit chance would indicate. This was scoffed at as superstition at first, but I guess the RNG was quirky enough that the developers eventually felt the need to compensate for it.
The Streak Breaker would scale with your to-hit chance, I don't remember the specifics, but at 95% chance to hit, it would cut in after missing five times in a row, and make the next hit an automatic hit.
There used to be computer poker machines here (Finland) in the 90's, that had a higher chance of a win with a low pay out on the first game (Usually the lowest, or 2nd lowest), to entice you to play more. We tested it to be about 80% chance to win, when we heard about it. Once the word spread, everyone who'd heard of it, would play one game, let it get in the idle state and play another game, etc. If it didn't pay out on the first win, it was most likely out of coins, so you'd need to wait until someone would play it and lose some money, so you could win. All the old machines were replaced by new machines with this "feature" removed and better graphics in the space of a couple of months, once the word had spread. I guess everyone abusing it, meant they were no longer making a profit on the machines. :p
Not MMO-related, but still in the same vein and possibly somewhat interesting.
I believe the quantity of game superstitions, whether meta or in-game, is a metric of player involvement, and that these benefit the game more than they detract from the game. If you are interested enough in an outcome to invest a belief system upon it then you are interested in those outcomes.
Is it a danger for games with little PvE content that in-game desirables will be too rare to promote player mythos-belief systems?
I would not be surprised to learn that a game might have that kind of functionality build in. "Random" numbers in computer software has always been a sore point because there really isn't such a thing as a random number. And random number simulation can get funky.I remember in City of Heroes, they had to introduce a "streak breaker" functionality into the to-hit calculations because people were observing that they would occasionally miss a lot more than their to-hit chance would indicate. This was scoffed at as superstition at first, but I guess the RNG was quirky enough that the developers eventually felt the need to compensate for it.
The Streak Breaker would scale with your to-hit chance, I don't remember the specifics, but at 95% chance to hit, it would cut in after missing five times in a row, and make the next hit an automatic hit.
It's one thing to complain about missing twice in a row with 95% to-hit, but it's expected roughly once for every 400 attacks. I doubt that there was any significant streak-causing behavior in their RNG, because I think the same function was called for everybody, rather than creating an instance for each entity. If there was a streak effect, it would manifest as two actors getting rare results at the same time, rather than one getting consecutive rare results.
d20 - 5% chance of each number from 1 to 20.
3d6 - 16.7% chance of each number from 1 to 6 on each of the three dice. Rolling three dice and adding them changes the probabilities of rolling each number from 3 to 18, as opposed to "rolling a 16 sided die" and adding 2. The net effect is a higher chance to roll numbers in the middle of the spread and a lower chance to roll very high or very low (and no chance to roll 1, 2, 19, or 20, of course).
Yes. It's explained very well in Unearthed Arcana.
The problem was others' perception that crits can only happen on a 20 and that 3d6 averages higher than 1d20. I distinctly remember someone saying we'd all be rolling 15s all the time... The problem was a failure of education in math. Some people, though, prefer the less arbitrary bell over the flat distributions offered by single dice.
But my original reason for suggesting it is that I'm certain it's much more difficult to influence the roll of three dice than it is to do the same for a single die. A couple of birds with ... three stones. I admit, it was a sly attempt at manipulation, but with a cheater and superstitious ignoramuses at the table, whatdyagonnado?
In early WoW there was a bug sometimes when looting. If you 'opened' the corpse and someone in the group was dead, they would not be able to receive the loot. They eventually fixed the bug.
Our guild though had such an ingrained memory, that for the next 3 years after it was fixed, we maintained the practice of getting everyone up and alive prior to opening the body. Eventually the practice started to diminish, particularly as Blizzard added tools to make loot distribution easier, but it stuck with us for a long time.
I love the 3d6 method in GURPS, but it gets broken with you have ridiculously high skill levels. I once had a character would would crit on a roll of 9 or less.
If you're running a high skill level GURPS game, you're also typically applying a healthy roster of modifiers that get glossed over/ignored in an introductory / normal skill range game.
You can have a skill of 30 ... but your effective skill is what matters when determining your 'crit threshold', not your base skill.
At least, not the way I run it. ;)
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I love the 3d6 method in GURPS, but it gets broken with you have ridiculously high skill levels. I once had a character would would crit on a roll of 9 or less.If you're running a high skill level GURPS game, you're also typically applying a healthy roster of modifiers that get glossed over/ignored in an introductory / normal skill range game.
You can have a skill of 30 ... but your effective skill is what matters when determining your 'crit threshold', not your base skill.
At least, not the way I run it. ;)
Eh, if you can hit the eyes with a piercing weapon on a 16 or less, it doesn't really matter where your crit is. Of course, if your opponent has a dodge/parry/block of 15 or less, it becomes more important. :)