Gaming With Dyscalculia (math dyslexia)

[unseenmage]

Sometimes it feels like you're the only one who sometimes can't do the basic arithmetic. Sometimes it feels like everyone else never gets lost halfway through calculating experience, or buying equipment, or designing a custom magic item or a stronghold.

You lean on your math-savvy friends too much and they tease. You take too long with your calculator earning sarcastic glares. Sometimes even with the calculator you still get lost in the numbers.

Despite all this gaming is still fun! You love sitting down and imagining and storytelling and even the number crunching when your brain cooperates!

Does anyone else have this or similar experience? Is anyone else not as good with the math of roleplaying?

Consider this your place to discuss. Your place to tell your tale. To share your strategies for getting through gaming sessions.

Remember, you're not the only one.

[Khedrac]

As someone who is fairly good at mental arithmetic I actually find that quite a few of the players I game with are pretty poor at it (well it seems that way to me). Normally I am happy to wait for them to work it out, but we also usually roll larger dice pots openly so the faster counters can add them up - makes it easier for the people who aren't quick to concentrate on what thy are doing with the character rather than running the numbers.

If we had a player in your position I would like to think that we would be happy to wait, or that they would ask one of us to keep track of the numbers for them - so they can just enjoy playing the character. I would also definitely think about not playing 3.5D&D - fighters pretty much have to be excellent at mental arithmetic (needless to say our fighter-type in one campaign is the slowest) and most other classes need more competency than in previous versions. Quite a few other systems don't feature large amounts of calculation and some have none at all.

If the other players keep making jokes about your issues, it's hard (and unpleasant for you). You could try asking them to stop - they may not realise that they are going to far and upsetting/hurting you.

All I can really offer is encouragement - keep up the gaming and don't be ashamed to admit you cannot add something up. Far too many people these days should be able to add up but cannot, you are not in their number - you are unable, it is different!

Also remember that no-one is good at everything - you may not be able to calculate, but I am terrible at drawing, it does not make either of us "better" than the other, just different.

[Knaight]

I routinely game with people who are very, very bad at math. It's part of the reason I favor rules light systems, and I generally find that those cause no issue for anyone, regardless of how bad their math skills are.

[Leon]

Being Dyscalculic myself i have come across some problems when playing with other people who don't know what it is (even after you try and explain it as dyslexia with numbers) but most people who i play with often know and will help me when things get tricky.

3.5 isnt too bad, 2e i find a lot harder as there is more subtraction with the THAC0. Of course these days my Fav system is Dungeon World (for a variety of reasons not just simple dice mechanics).

[Palegreenpants]

I've GMed with players who could be slow with math, and even with a guy who hah a learning disorder. Each time, everyone in the group helped them out, and I got the impression that they received a very fulfilling experience from the game.

It is great that roleplaying games allow for such inclusion, even if one member of the group requires extra help or time to think.

[Ansem]

Just give them a calculator or let them use a chatbox with diceroller commands or an online diceroller on their smartphone. Solved it for our group with two people.

[cobaltstarfire]

Just give them a calculator or let them use a chatbox with diceroller commands or an online diceroller on their smartphone. Solved it for our group with two people.

Those things aren't going to "solve" the problem with dyscalculia, people who have dyscalculia often have trouble reading numbers, as well as understanding them and how they relate to and interact with each other depending on how bad they have it.


That said, I wonder if some of the tricks from dyslexia can help with dyscalculia, mainly making sure each number on your calculator or on your dice is unique looking. In dyslexic folks it's often easier for them to read fonts where each letter is unique. (that is for example b, p, d, and q all look different rather than just being the same glyph rotated or flipped)

[unseenmage]

...

If the other players keep making jokes about your issues, it's hard (and unpleasant for you). You could try asking them to stop - they may not realise that they are going to far and upsetting/hurting you.

...

This is less a problem for me now that I know what I am. Having a word to describe something can be helpful sometimes it seems.

Also remember that no-one is good at everything - you may not be able to calculate, but I am terrible at drawing, it does not make either of us "better" than the other, just different.

The above parallels a personal revelation of some years ago.
There is a profound truth in it.

...

3.5 isnt too bad, 2e i find a lot harder as there is more subtraction with the THAC0. Of course these days my Fav system is Dungeon World (for a variety of reasons not just simple dice mechanics).

Had some trouble explaining to someone one day about how science has found that subtraction is less intuitive for a lot of people's brains than addition can be. Where that ties in to dyscalculia can make subtraction based systems a nightmare to play in. For me at least.

[Airk]

Use a game with a dice pool system. As long as you can count, this should work. (You may need to add or subtract, but you can do so with actual physical objects - "Okay, my stat is 5" <takes 5 dice> "and I get a bonus of two for my equipment" <takes two more dice> "but this curse gives me minus 3 dice." <removes 3 dice from the pile> "And...roll!")

Rules light systems in general will certainly help as you won't have to do super complex multiple factor addition/subtraction and stuff.

[Grimtina]

I'm glad to see others with the same prob.

Heavy discalculia, playing and GMing since I'm 7 years old.

I'm 44 today and still have most of my senses despite the numbers.

And yeah, I usually have at least one player cross check stuff for me, especially cheets.

[Jeff the Green]

I don't exactly have a problem with math (which is a good thing, because my particular field is kinda based on it) except for being slow with mental arithmetic, but, well, I'm kind of Durkon (which you may have noticed, unseenmage; between The Standing Stone, his Ravens Bluff Sandbox that I'm in, and my Ravenloft game he's in, TFO certainly has ).

So I try to keep everything written down and precalculated so I don't have to do it on the fly. Of course, there's the problem that I will occasionally lose my notes (particularly for PbP, since it's longer between turns) and can't always predict the numbers I'll need (bad for tabletop, in particularly). It helps a little, but certainly not enough to make it negligible.

[unseenmage]

Use a game with a dice pool system. As long as you can count, this should work. (You may need to add or subtract, but you can do so with actual physical objects - "Okay, my stat is 5" <takes 5 dice> "and I get a bonus of two for my equipment" <takes two more dice> "but this curse gives me minus 3 dice." <removes 3 dice from the pile> "And...roll!")

Rules light systems in general will certainly help as you won't have to do super complex multiple factor addition/subtraction and stuff.

Bolded for emphasis by me.

That's the thing about dyscalculia, sometimes you can not in fact count. And sometimes you can. It's been my experience that stress and mood can also be a factor though so changing up gaming systems could take time to show results but finding where one is comfortable could be very important.

[Grimtina]

Exactly.

I play D&D-type games for a long time. although there are rule sets out there I like slightly better for some things, I keep coming back to d20 because here at least I know a lot of stuff by heart rather than thinking about numbers. And I still have to ask or look stuff up.

Learning a new system, especially remembering what dice to use when, and what numbers to add up takes ages for me. Although I was surprisingly quick catching on with Talislanta and The One Ring.

[NikitaDarkstar]

*raises a hand* Yep, same issue here, but possibly not quite as severe as it is for some others.

I mainly play D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, and pretty much exclusively d20 systems, and in the beginning it was... harsh on me. Mind you I can add and subtract just fine (even if I do use a calculator, cause it's easier to punch in 3+9+5 or whatever and get the result right away instead of counting it on my fingers, and I know it's right), but the sheer amount of numbers on your average character sheet was extremely intimidating for the first couple of years and I'd constantly get lost in them, read them wrong, or just have a meltdown to the point where my mind literary could not comprehend numbers anymore, lets just say it was a frustrating experience for everyone involved (and even after that I still needed help with my weapons lines for a few more years, cause iterative attacks and stuff? yhea, no). But I've found that good friends that are willing to be patient and explain things (no matter how many times it takes...) will help you get through it, that and learning to NOT look at the entire sheet at the same time, cause you will never use all of it all at once so it doesn't matter if it looks like something you could possibly summon Chutulu with at first glance, you just need to know where to read to do a jump check or whatever.

I've also found that if I have a physical sheet in front of me it's a good help to have a non-clear ruler (or any straight object to put under a line) to help you keep track of where you're reading (or just high-lightning if it's a digital sheet) and read and do things step by step. I mean, why look at the damage dice before you've even done your attack roll? And why worry about the special weapon abilities (if you have them) until you've resolved your regular damage? Sure it takes a bit more time, but it works. A note-book to scribble down your numbers and stuff in also helps.

Okay I still run into some stuff I just can't do. Like fractionals. I love playing gestalt games and epic level games, which is well, an absurd amount of math. I can do most of it if given enough time (and in play by post you do have time) but fractional saves and such? Yhea I'm going to ask for help, cause that's one of those things that I don't think I'll ever understand.

That is also why I'm reluctant to change systems now. Sure there's easier things to use, but if just switching from D&D 3.5 to D20 Modern left me in tears cause the math was somewhat different I'm not to keen on changing things up if I can avoid it, cause 3.5 and PF doesn't scare me anymore, I understand the systems, and for the most part the numbers make sense, I may not be that good with actually using the numbers, but I sort of understand them. That is one thing many people don't seem to understand either, that if you're really bad at something and struggle a lot to learn it you're not going to want to change. Sure there may be things out there that's easier, but if you finally start to understand things on a theoretical level at least you won't want to change to something that may possibly be easier in the long run, cause relearning things is painful, and it will take you forever to actually get your brain to stop defaulting to the old system (I tried some D100 stuff before D&D... relearning that was.... awkward).

Also, for those of you who are good with math and game with people who aren't, please don't double check or questions peoples math unless they either ask for help or you KNOW it's wrong (and wrong by a lot), we're usually uncertain enough as it is, making people second guess themselves will slow things down even more and make people feel awful. Offer to help, sure, but if the offer is turned away, please accept that, cause sometimes people just really want to roll and count their own dice.

[unseenmage]

Seconding almost the entirety of the above story.
The guy who taught me to play reads sourcebooks for fun so my ineptitudes kept him constantly frustrated.

On the other hand, some folk with dyscalculia can easily comprehend the math, even when they cannot correctly calculate it.

For example, I love algebra, it is a beautiful system and my brain gets that value changed by value equals value. But when there are numbers in there instead of abstract values the calculations can trip me up something fierce.

So the big number games are still fun for us, still exciting and the good kind of challenging. Epic, custom magic items, gestalt, etc etc. It's the calculations that fight us.
I wound up with a character who made exponential, exponential Constructs semi-recently and it was hilarious. All I knew was that I had two in-game months to field a big army. I knew I was making a big number of Constructs. But when we actually sat down to do the math I'd made an exponential process perpetuated itself exponentially. I had gotten so lost in the minutia of the calculations of "per day" and "x bonus to y action z times" etc that I had completely missed the fact that the end result was going to be a wholly unusable number.

And by unusable I mean the process would have made more mass worth of Constructs than the planet of Faerun had mass. It was ridiculous and funny and agonizingly frustrating all at the same time. My DM was cool though, he let us back up and make a reasonable number of Constructs by tweaking the process some. In the end we settled for a new nation of Constructs springing magically into being and my character's deity asked him very politely to never ever do it again.

TLDR: Can't count doesn't mean big numbers are no fun. Just that they become more difficult.

[Airk]

Bolded for emphasis by me.

That's the thing about dyscalculia, sometimes you can not in fact count. And sometimes you can. It's been my experience that stress and mood can also be a factor though so changing up gaming systems could take time to show results but finding where one is comfortable could be very important.

I'm sorry? It keeps you from counting actual physical objects in front of you? I'm not talking about counting in your head here. And there is no adding at all.

Honestly, if you can manage Pathfinder or 3X, you can manage anything - they're pretty much the worst systems imaginable when it comes to lots of math.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Airk I'd argue that GURPS is worse but at least you can get software specifically designed for that system to help you... But yhea 3.5 and PF are bad and most certainly wouldn't have been my first choice if I had had any idea of what I was getting myself into.

[cobaltstarfire]

I'm sorry? It keeps you from counting actual physical objects in front of you? I'm not talking about counting in your head here. And there is no adding at all.

Honestly, if you can manage Pathfinder or 3X, you can manage anything - they're pretty much the worst systems imaginable when it comes to lots of math.

Yes, dyscaculia makes it harder for someone to count. Read up on it maybe?

Depending on how bad it is, it's hard to count, it's hard to keep numbers straight, it's hard to manipulate them, it's hard to read them, it's hard to understand greater than, less than, and equal to. Abstract concepts can be hard, the ability to even understand or remember how to do anything mathematically can be impossible.


I do not have dyscaculia, but I do have a minor math disability of some sort (I was never given a name, just a letter on my evaluation saying I am legally entitled to accommodations for math related things). Fortunately I've never had people really pick on me or get impatient with me about it. But I do still feel really uncomfortable and self aware about trying to do math heavy things in any amount of time. I would probably feel worse so if someone brazenly told me that I should be able to "manage" when I'm struggling with something, and imply that I should be able to easily get around my problem by doing something that probably won't actually work for me.

[Jay R]

Role-playing games grew up in the middle of wargaming, and were originally by and for math-comfortable people. One of the biggest differences between old-school gaming and new-school gaming is that the old school could assume that everybody in the game was interested in doing careful calculations, mapping, etc. We were all math nerds, and the average game looked like it belonged in The Big Bang Theory.

In the eighties, a few non-math-nerds joined in, and that was the start of the feelings you are describing.

Eventually games started being designed with that much larger market in mind, but the hobby still has roots in mathematical simulation and military strategy, so there will always be math nerds, and we will always be thinking along math-centric lines.

The closest thing to a solution is for us to realize that the hobby has more of you than of me, and to offer our skills for others to use. (I have one long-term gamer friend. I always produce his character sheet, and do other calculations.)

We'll get along with you and be patient with your different outlook on the games. But please also remember to be patient with our different outlook on the game.

[Grimtina]

I'm happy about the math nerds, but I probably look like a deer in the headlight a lot of times when they try to explain stuff lol

[Airk]

Yes, dyscaculia makes it harder for someone to count. Read up on it maybe?

I did, albiet lazily. Wikipedia indicates that it makes it harder for someone to "eyeball" the number of something, but that's not the same thing as "Okay, I'll sift all the 1's off to one side and count them as I go." or even "Okay, here are all the ones, here are all the twos, here are all the threes, now I count all the dice on the left." which is going to be easier, every single time, than "15+2-4+3=...???"

[unseenmage]

I did, albiet lazily. Wikipedia indicates that it makes it harder for someone to "eyeball" the number of something, but that's not the same thing as "Okay, I'll sift all the 1's off to one side and count them as I go." or even "Okay, here are all the ones, here are all the twos, here are all the threes, now I count all the dice on the left." which is going to be easier, every single time, than "15+2-4+3=...???"

Please stop belittling the difficulties of others. It is the opposite of helpful or polite.

If you disagree with the nomenclature used by someone to describe a possibly medical difficulty they are having then please please just say that you disagree with the nomenclature.

Please do not presume, assume, or try to dictate what another person can or cannot do especially when the capability is within their own mind and across the vast chasm of the internet.

Thank you.

[Airk]

Please stop belittling the difficulties of others. It is the opposite of helpful or polite.

If you disagree with the nomenclature used by someone to describe a possibly medical difficulty they are having then please please just say that you disagree with the nomenclature.

Please do not presume, assume, or try to dictate what another person can or cannot do especially when the capability is within their own mind and across the vast chasm of the internet.

Thank you.

I'm not belittling anyone; I am simply arguing against unclear terminology and misrepresentation of tasks.

Or, to put it another way, it's much easier for people to make suggestions about how best to overcome a problem if you clearly represent what the problem is. If you tell people "I have problems with stairs!" and then get upset when they suggest ramps because those are easier than stairs, no one is belittling your disability, they are just being frustrated by your explanation.

[weckar]

Except this is not a problem about overcoming anything. It's a part of who they are. It would be like me 'overcoming' the fact my eyes are green, or more accurately that my brain sometimes literally goes too fast.

[valadil]

I've actually never heard the term dyscalculia before. I've played with a dyslexic player who had trouble with arithmetic though, so I may have encountered it through him.

If the other players are giving you a hard time, that's a social problem. Don't game with jerks. Especially if they know you have a disability and still mistreat you for it. I think it's perfectly acceptable to use a calculator.

Out of curiosity, does gaming help with your arithmetic? I always thought I was naturally really good at it until I stopped gaming regularly after having kids. Now I'm a lot slower. I still get there but I have to think about it, as opposed to just looking at the dice and seeing the answer without mentally adding them all up. I mention this not to brag, but because gaming was arithmetic practice for me.

That said, I wonder if some of the tricks from dyslexia can help with dyscalculia, mainly making sure each number on your calculator or on your dice is unique looking. In dyslexic folks it's often easier for them to read fonts where each letter is unique. (that is for example b, p, d, and q all look different rather than just being the same glyph rotated or flipped)

I saw something about a font designed for dyslexia. The idea was that the bottom of each glyph was wider and flatter, which made the letter look like it was weighed down and less likely to move. Give p and d a distinct bottom and they no longer look like a mirror of each other. It's prohibitively expensive (I assume) to get dice molded in a custom font (although if you have a 3d printer or a friend with a 3d printer...), but die rolling apps are plentiful. Could you run one of these using a dyslexia friendly font?

[Kalmageddon]

Except this is not a problem about overcoming anything. It's a part of who they are. It would be like me 'overcoming' the fact my eyes are green, or more accurately that my brain sometimes literally goes too fast.

Uh... Not even remotely the same thing? Dyscalculia is an handicap, having green eyes is just rare. It doesn't represent a problem in the slightest. Not being able to count things? Fairly big problem.

Now, if someone with dyscalculia doesn't want to do anything about it, that's his choice and it should be respected. But let's not get overboard with the "just be yourself" sugar coated nonesense.

[unseenmage]

I'm not really sure what to say to that. I can only assume I'm being trolled.


Dyscalculia is currently gaining traction as an identifiable disorder and as such there is science being done at the problem in an attempt to treat it. The assumption is that it is much like dyslexia both in frequency and mechanism. One can assume that it will be much the same insofar as social acceptance too; or so it would seem from the posts in this thread.


I started this thread as a nice place to share experience for people who suffer from a disorder. Somehow it has become a place where we're being challenged to not pick on the math kids, get over it, and defend vernacular.


This is not a problem that will be easily solved by this forum post and that was not my intention. The people who suffer with this try and try every day to 'get over it' to no avail. Numbers are intrinsic to modern life, they're everywhere. Yes practice helps. No it is not a solution. Yes calculators help. No they don't make the problem go away either. In fact they can make it worse because how dumb would you feel if you were using a calculator and still messed up a basic calculation in a public place in front of strangers and friends alike? I can tell you from experience that it sucks. Even if no one says anything it sucks. The point of this thread was to be a place where the fact of dyscalculia didn't have to suck quite as much as it usually does.


As far as, "...'just be yourself' sugar coated nonesense.", we need more of it! Dyscalculia sucks enough thank you. Coping every day with not being able to count change, or remember birthdays, or dial phone numbers, or do anything numbers related in a non-time-consuming fashion already sucks. We need some feel-good for a change. Because we give ourselves more than enough feel-bad for not being as good as our cohorts at the games we still love to play (and win!) despite our lack of ability.

[Kalmageddon]

How does correcting someone that was comparing dyscalculia to green eyes counts* as telling you to "get over it"? I'm honestly curious.

And with "sugar coating" I was referring to the practice of denying a problem exists in favour of just saying it's "part of who you are, like green eyes". Come on.
I find it a very unhealthy attitude, if I had done the same with my PTSD I'd still be having panic attacks whenever I hear a loud noise...

*no pun intended, btw, just to avoid further hostility.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Very interesting topic! I'm trying to think of systems that don't rely heavily on math, and it really is hard to find them.

Happy Birthday, Robot! and Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple come to mind as storytelling games that don't rely on numbers, for one. Also, Penny For My Thoughts can play just fine, I suspect. (There's some counting involved in that game, but it's not pervasive. It happens every time someone starts a memory: you need to figure out who goes next, so you compare coin totals. It's a group thing, so the dyscalculic [is that how you'd say it?] person doesn't even need to do the counting.)

But I'm having trouble thinking of games beyond that. It's definitely a blind spot in RPG design, for sure!

[unseenmage]

How does correcting someone that was comparing dyscalculia to green eyes counts* as telling you to "get over it"? I'm honestly curious.

And with "sugar coating" I was referring to the practice of denying a problem exists in favour of just saying it's "part of who you are". I find it a very unhealthy attitude, if I had done the same with my PTSD I'd still be having panic attacks whenever I hear a loud noise...

*no pun intended, btw, just to avoid further hostility.

I suppose I was reading more into your 'sugar coating' comment than was there, for which I apologize.

As far as this viewpoint of yours that self-acceptance is somehow wrong or bad we'll just have to agree to disagree. For my part in my life I've found that self-denial does the greater harm, but that is just my personal experience.