YAAD

Jack Bolsen wrote:
> On turn 131:
>
> The goblin zaps and oak wand! The newt is killed by the death ray! The
> death ray hits you!
>
> DYWYPI?
>
> Jeez! How unfair is that? A goblin with a wand of death on level 1??

I have this new theory. When the RNG seems cruelest and most arbitrary,
she's actually acting out of the purest benevolence and loving-kindness.
What was *going* to happen was that you were gonna get killed by a newt
on the Astral Plane, 4 steps away from ascending. So She spared you!
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The worm does turn eventually. In my current game I found, in order ..
A) Boots of speed on level 2.
B) wand of make invisible on level 3.
C) gauntlets of power, shield of reflection, AND decent armor on level
5.

Of course, I had to kill 6 mimics (1 giant, 2 large, 3 small) with my
unarmored tourist and his pet cat to get those C) items, so it wasn't
completely free. And the RNG threw in a treasure zoo on level 7 with
awakened monsters that almost killed me as well.

So consider this paying it forward -- this bad luck will be balanced
out with good luck later.

Who knows? Maybe the wand of death was simply lying around in the
dungeon, and if you'd found it first it would have been an astounding
piece of good luck.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
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pendell DeleteThis @hotmail.com wrote:
> The worm does turn eventually. In my current game I found, in order ..
> A) Boots of speed on level 2.
> B) wand of make invisible on level 3.
> C) gauntlets of power, shield of reflection, AND decent armor on level
> 5.
>
> Of course, I had to kill 6 mimics (1 giant, 2 large, 3 small) with my
> unarmored tourist and his pet cat to get those C) items, so it wasn't
> completely free. And the RNG threw in a treasure zoo on level 7 with
> awakened monsters that almost killed me as well.
>
> So consider this paying it forward -- this bad luck will be balanced
> out with good luck later.
>
> Who knows? Maybe the wand of death was simply lying around in the
> dungeon, and if you'd found it first it would have been an astounding
> piece of good luck.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Brian P.

strange, it almost seems that a string of random numbers will
eventually average out... must be some property of random numbers....
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HighInBC wrote:
> strange, it almost seems that a string of random numbers will
> eventually average out... must be some property of random numbers....

The Law of Large Numbers, no?

And here you thought stats class was worthless...
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Jack Bolsen <jbolsen.DeleteThis@verizon.net> wrote in news:wItMf.3430$XE6.2
@trnddc07:

> On turn 131:
>
> The goblin zaps and oak wand! The newt is killed by the death ray! The
> death ray hits you!
>
> DYWYPI?
>
> Jeez! How unfair is that? A goblin with a wand of death on level 1??

You wouldn't have thought it was unfair if you got to the wand of death
first. The wand must have been generated on the ground when you started
the game, you were just too slow.
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blipster8 wrote:
> HighInBC wrote:
> > strange, it almost seems that a string of random numbers will
> > eventually average out... must be some property of random numbers....
>
> The Law of Large Numbers, no?
>
> And here you thought stats class was worthless...

Or is it the Gambler's Fallacy?

A.
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blipster8 wrote:
> HighInBC wrote:
>> strange, it almost seems that a string of random numbers will
>> eventually average out... must be some property of random numbers....
>
> The Law of Large Numbers, no?
>
> And here you thought stats class was worthless...
>

Law of Averages, actually.

I believe the Law of Large Numbers is something else entirely (Says that
the mean of a subset is usually close to the mean of the whole set).

--
____ (__)
/ \ (oo) -Zarel
|Moo. > \/
\____/
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The Law of Large Numbers states that, for any unlikely event X, the
probability of X occurring at least once increases as the number of
events increases. For this reason, miracles happen every month, people
do win the lottery, and lightning strikes twice in the same place.

The Gambler's Fallacy is a belif in the "memory" of probability. After
Red comes up at roulette, 3 dozen times in a row, red should be
slightly less likely to come up, says the fallacy. In all fact, the
probability is still unchanged: 9/19 for red, 9/19 for black, 1/19 for
0/00.
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Zarel wrote:
> blipster8 wrote:
> > HighInBC wrote:
> >> strange, it almost seems that a string of random numbers will
> >> eventually average out... must be some property of random numbers....
> >
> > The Law of Large Numbers, no?
> >
> > And here you thought stats class was worthless...
> >
>
> Law of Averages, actually.
>
> I believe the Law of Large Numbers is something else entirely (Says that
> the mean of a subset is usually close to the mean of the whole set).

Which is what I said it was, right? If you have a bunch of iid random
vars then their mean approaches the true mean, which is basically the
same as "a string of random numbers eventually averaging out." The
Gambler's Fallacy is different, to whoever mentioned that; going by it,
you'd say that you're more likely to have a lucky game after you die to
boulder traps on the second turn 500 times in a row than you were
before, which of course is not true. Going by the LLN, however, you
could get the correct assumption that your luck in tons of games is
most likely going to be close to neutral overall.
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blipster8 wrote:
> Zarel wrote:
> > blipster8 wrote:
> > > HighInBC wrote:
> > >> strange, it almost seems that a string of random numbers will
> > >> eventually average out... must be some property of random numbers....
> > >
> > > The Law of Large Numbers, no?
> > >
> > > And here you thought stats class was worthless...
> > >
> >
> > Law of Averages, actually.
> >
> > I believe the Law of Large Numbers is something else entirely (Says that
> > the mean of a subset is usually close to the mean of the whole set).
>
> Which is what I said it was, right? If you have a bunch of iid random
> vars then their mean approaches the true mean, which is basically the
> same as "a string of random numbers eventually averaging out." The
> Gambler's Fallacy is different, to whoever mentioned that; going by it,
> you'd say that you're more likely to have a lucky game after you die to
> boulder traps on the second turn 500 times in a row than you were
> before, which of course is not true. Going by the LLN, however, you
> could get the correct assumption that your luck in tons of games is
> most likely going to be close to neutral overall.

Sorry for the double-post, but I just finally realized that you weren't
one of the people who mentioned the Gambler's Fallacy. The Law of
Averages does indeed apply to this situation, as it is (in my
experience) basically what you call the LLN if you don't want to be
made fun of for remembering something from stats class.
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darthbob88.DeleteThis@gmail.com wrote:
> The Gambler's Fallacy is a belif in the "memory" of probability. After
> Red comes up at roulette, 3 dozen times in a row, red should be
> slightly less likely to come up, says the fallacy. In all fact, the
> probability is still unchanged: 9/19 for red, 9/19 for black, 1/19 for
> 0/00.
>
In theory. In practice, if red comes up three dozen times in a
row, my money's on red the next spin, because it's unlikely that it's a
fair wheel.

--
John Campbell
jcampbel.DeleteThis@lynn.ci-n.com
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