Pseudobot - Math and Graphs; How Fair is the Random Stat Generator?

So, last week, and the week before I worked on a tool to randomly generate character attributes in a way that the results would all have the same point values. At first, the algorithm assumed a character would have no decreased attributes and secondary characteristics, which was not satisfying to me, so I adjusted it so that the character could have minimum values based on some numbers I extrapolated from various GURPS sources as the bare minimum ok amount for a character. I think this was a good improvement. However, after making a naive implementation of the algorithm that gave each attribute or secondary characteristic an equal chance of occurring, on a whim, I decided to generate several thousand characters to see what the expected outcomes would be like. The result was that certain things apparently had certain unfair advantages in selecting them that made it so that certain attributes had noticeably lower or higher averages, thus began a complicated process of trying to make the algorithm as balanced as possible.

Pseudobot - More Balanced Random Stat Rolling

This took a really long time to get right, but I have arrived. This is the stats of 20,000 randomly generated characters with 0 points.

• Average DX - 10.04
• Average HT - 10.09
• Average IQ - 10.17
• Average ST - 10.07
• Average Basic Move - 4.68 (This seems pretty low for the average 0 point character, but it is actually pretty ok for behind the scenes reasons)
• Average Basic Speed - 5.03
• Average FP - 9.98
• Average HP - 10.26 (Weirdly high, but still ok.)
• Average Per - 10.02
• Average Will - 10.04

The goal was to make it hit close to what a 0 point character would be. The tricky part is that there is bounding logic which means that the difference between HP and ST isn't allowed to get too far off track, so, for example, if HP is currently at the minimum relative threshold to ST, more ST can't be added until more HP is added. This causes a complicated chain reaction where slightly nudging the balance one way or the other suddenly makes a different result much more likely. I had some weird problems with average IQ suddenly jumping 1 or 2 whole points - not 10.2, 12 - trying to balance the probability of FP versus HT, HP versus ST, Perception and Will versus IQ, but after holding it up to a very shoddy standard of scrutiny, it looks "good enough for me." I might analyze the math and source code in an upcoming post, maybe someone can point out an obvious flaw.

Pseudobot - Jump Command

I added this to pseudobot; I think it's pretty simple, but ah well. It calculates jump height and distance and optionally includes enhanced move and super jump. Wow.

Pseudobot - Random Stats Roller

Similar to my pointless slaying and looting random character generator, but this one just randomly spends a given amount of points on attributes and secondary characteristics. Now you can have "balanced" random stats if that is your thing. I dunno why I made this, but I did.

Pseudobot - Infinite World Universe Generator

It does what I say it does. It rolls random tables and comes up with a lot of stuff for a parallel world. Use it if you like, don't if you don't.

Pseudobot - Updated Some Indices

Was slacking on the Pyramid issue index. It's updated for the last two months now. Can't think of anything interesting to write this week, but that counts as doing something, I think. Pseudobot is now used on 154 Guilds, or what most people call "servers." Sounds kinda cool.

Pseudobot - Broken Blade Calculator Enhanced

This week, I added repair calculations to the Broken Blade command. Those were more complicated than the rest of the functions. I had to extrapolate out some of the costs for big weapon damage because the pyramid article only goes out to HT - 10. I found a trendline with a pretty good fit though, so I like the numbers. If you don't like them though, just don't use the calculator for any damage values that exceed -10 I guess.

Pseudobot - Broken Blade Calculator

Made a calculator for the broken blade that calculates a lot of the boring stuff for you so you can get to the cool part faster. Thinking I'll add a feature next week to help calculate repair costs as well. Might see if I can format the data a bit better.

Pseudobot - Despair Fright Check Table

It's slightly different from the other ones. It has a lot of crying.

Like that, maybe

Pseudobot - Added some more critical failure tables

Added all the critical failure tables from the back of GURPS Thaumatology to the critical miss/failure command. No more flipping through books. Roll that Spirit table.

Source

Pseudobot: Added Critical Spell Failure table

Go fail some spells. Yippy.

Source

Pseudobot: More Grand Unified Hit Location Table stuff.

Fixed a few bugs, added the ability to lookup sublocations, and added an option to use them in the explosion calculator for shrapnel hit locations.

Pseudobot - Grand Unified Hit Location Table

The first time I used this picture
to announce this function, it was
irrelevant. Now that I have used it
again, it has become relevant.
This is meta.

I've added the popular house ruled hit location table that tries to reconcile a bunch of seemingly incongruent hit location tables into one. Read more about the design of it here. Access it with .guhlt.

Pseudobot: Small Maintenance Update

People requested error messages for the range commands. So I added error messages to the range commands.

Pseudobot: Dump Logs

Some people were saying they thought it was too hard to save game logs out of discord... so I made a function to save game logs out of discord. I figure that could be useful for a lot of people for a lot of applications, but I made it specifically for people that role play on discord, so that's that.

Pseudobot - New Last Gasp Helper and all around small performance enhancement

By default, Pseudobot blocks on all service calls apparently, which is weird, because I would automatically assume that each event interrupt would spawn its own thread at least, but apparently, by default, that is not the case. So that is fixed, this means that if Jon Doe is hammering the bot on some server, it doesn't stop Jane Doe from hammering it on another.
Also, a new command is added to let people do the quick and dirty last gasp roll for mooks who are not important enough to have AP. Take a look if you like The Last Gasp, but you are like me, and can't be bothered to memorize two tables with three possible outcomes.

Pseudobot: Lots of Quick Contests Really Fast

Someone asked me for a feature to do a bunch of quick contests really fast, so I did it. Not much more to explain, but I hope it is helpful. One version of the command lets you quick contest against several similar targets, and one lets you run a quick contest against targets of differing abilities. Use the help function to learn more.

Pseudobot: Long Distance Calculations, Slam Fixes, and Lookup enhancements

All we need to do is calculate how
many yards away we are firing, find
the book that has the correct table,
remember the page number, etc. etc.

A potpourri of a buncha small things this week:

• Added a function that calculates long distance penalties. It defaults to miles, but supports other units as well.
• Fixed the DFRPG slam function, and made it its own. I got a little confused about the SM thing when reading it in the book, so now the damage should be correct.
• Enhanced the aggregation of page references in a lot of the lookup functions that use GCS data. This means that, if for example, a spell exists in GURPS Magic and in Dungeon Fantasy Spells, instead of showing just one page reference, it shows both. I bring up that example because it is among the most common, but it cropped up multiple times in multiple ways.

Cross-Post: GURPSDay Summary and Reflections

Pretty much.

More things happen

Cross-Post: GURPSDay Summary and Reflections

Let's pop together.

A week about things.