>>3837779
>be bg3
>successive waves of writers re-write story into convoluted nonsense
>present illusion of freedom of choice, within a narrative framework that requires heavy railroading to function
>illusion of freedom of choice crumbles if player makes choices contrary to what is necessary for plot to happen, to the point of "but thou must!" or the DM handing out arbitrary game overs
>player agency disrespected out of necessity, because the devs painted themselves into a corner, and the plot would otherwise fall apart
>profit
>???

>>3812002
BG3's cargo cult dice fetishism made me realize that the D20 system is fundamentally flawed because it is a flat, linear distribution, in which an average result, a very poor result, and an excellent result are all equally weighted, which feels very random and swingy and bad. A proper system should involve summing multiple smaller dice to produce a Gaussian distribution, in which an average result is weighted far more heavily than a poor result or a great result.

It is true that an omniscient DM with infinite time and perfect knowledge of all the modifiers which will be applied to a specific roll could set a D20 roll to have the desired chance of success for his players, being effectively equivalent to a Gaussian distribution in that case, however in practice that is not the case. When a player applies a +1 or a -1 to a roll, it's linearly shifting it by 5% increments, while a Gaussian distribution would still be more non-linear.