MitD XV: The Other Dark One

[Quebbster]

First I need to comment on ow great of a name O'Chill is

But more importantly:




not necessarily. Common usage is to always round up when rounding half, but that leads to a positive bias, since all your numbers end up higher. A much better rule of thumb is to always round to even: thus 2.5 and 1.5 both round to 2. That way you don't introduce a bias into your data.

That seems like a bias against odd numbers to me...

[ReaderAt2046]

Crusher, could you please change my guess from "ANB > Carbosilicate Amorph" to "Xenocrysth > Carbosilicate Amorph"?

[Nail]

Sorry if this has been suggested before, but I've been rereading OOTS and I have a weird idea for what the Monster can be. I don't think it's stats are actually high enough, but I thought I'd get the opinions of people who know more about D&D then I. Could our favorite Monster of Mystery be a Dark Flumph?

[Ortho]

Sorry if this has been suggested before, but I've been rereading OOTS and I have a weird idea for what the Monster can be. I don't think it's stats are actually high enough, but I thought I'd get the opinions of people who know more about D&D then I. Could our favorite Monster of Mystery be a Dark Flumph?

Surprisingly, you're not the first person to suggest something along those lines:

I think it's some sort of Flumph.

But that was over a decade ago, and that's never been a reason to count something out anyways. What are the stats of a Dark Flumph?

[Crusher]

Surprisingly, you're not the first person to suggest something along those lines:



But that was over a decade ago, and that's never been a reason to count something out anyways. What are the stats of a Dark Flumph?

Yeah, I was just looking around to see if one existed and I couldn’t find anything. A flumph actually does really well on Pros and Cons (the old ones don’t speak, much less in common, bad at holding things, not too big, native to Underdark not jungles, etc) and it might be fine on the Circus Scene, but it fails everything else pretty badly. Also, rare that this is an issue but they’re too small.

You could probably do something fun with templates. A Paragon, Phrenic, Pseudonatural Flumph would be quite something.

[C-Dude]

Sorry if this has been suggested before, but I've been rereading OOTS and I have a weird idea for what the Monster can be. I don't think it's stats are actually high enough, but I thought I'd get the opinions of people who know more about D&D then I. Could our favorite Monster of Mystery be a Dark Flumph?

The Flumph wasn't updated to 3rd edition (at least, not at the time the comic started), so I don't think it's the Monster in the Darkness.

Also, as an old-edition creature, it would have fallen under the control of Dorukan's amulet and wandered into that pit of forgotten monsters, years before the start of the comic.

Also... flumphs don't have feet? How would he stomp?

[Nail]

Surprisingly, you're not the first person to suggest something along those lines:



But that was over a decade ago, and that's never been a reason to count something out anyways. What are the stats of a Dark Flumph?

Yeah, I was just looking around to see if one existed and I couldn’t find anything. A flumph actually does really well on Pros and Cons (the old ones don’t speak, much less in common, bad at holding things, not too big, native to Underdark not jungles, etc) and it might be fine on the Circus Scene, but it fails everything else pretty badly. Also, rare that this is an issue but they’re too small.

You could probably do something fun with templates. A Paragon, Phrenic, Pseudonatural Flumph would be quite something.

Yeah, my bad. I didn't realize the site I read about them on was a home brew assistance site GMBinder, not that its reliant but its supposed to be a Flumph who lost Wis (which is why I thought it fit.) Though I would like to point out that the 2 reoccurring Flumphs are just about the right size.

The Flumph wasn't updated to 3rd edition (at least, not at the time the comic started), so I don't think it's the Monster in the Darkness.

Also, as an old-edition creature, it would have fallen under the control of Dorukan's amulet and wandered into that pit of forgotten monsters, years before the start of the comic.

Also... flumphs don't have feet? How would he stomp?

You've got me there, Dungeon Magazine #118 which added Flumphs into 3.5 came out around strip #140. Though Dorukans amulet/pit does open the door for something that wasn't in the game at that time. Besides being compelled to head to the pit from his original home would explain why he was in the jungle in the first place, even if he was distracted along the way (which is in character as I see it.) Along those lines has anyone else looked at why TMITD was in the jungle in the first place? Because I may have just convinced myself he's a (then) outdated monster even if not a Flumph.

Also it's already a conceit of this threads setup that a stomp could be made without traditional feet, beyond that I don't have an answer.

[Nail]

Also The Othello picture looks like a Flumphs when upside down

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Also The Othello picture looks like a Flumphs when upside down

It's Go, not Othello. And I don't see a flumph, or anything else, in those stones. It's been a while since we last had an example of pareidolia in this thread.

GW

[Nail]

It's Go, not Othello. And I don't see a flumph, or anything else, in those stones. Is't been a while since we last had an example of pareidolia in this thread.

GW

My mistake I thought Othello and Go were the same game.

[Particle_Man]

If it were not for so many mortals recognizing it, I would have guessed Snarl II, spawned when the Dark One was attacked by Thor and defended by gods of other colours. MiTD has the same difficulty with understanding gates, and is extremely powerful (as a four colour being in a mere three colour world would be). Luckily MiTD seems less hostile than the original Snarl. Although MiTD is hungry a lot of the time, which could get dangerous.

[Scizor]

Crusher, I'd like to update my guess to Xenocrysth > Protean

[Charybdis136]

My mistake I thought Othello and Go were the same game.

GO is a heavy strategy game much like chess and is exceedingly complicated. I do not play othello but to my understanding it has a lot less strategy (not to say there is no skill at all). GO has many tournaments like chess does, and it has large communities online who play. To explain how to play would be to complicated but I suggest that you look it up! It is super fun.

[Particle_Man]

Go is even more strategic than chess. It took longer for AI to crack go than it did to solve chess.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Go is even more strategic than chess. It took longer for AI to crack go than it did to solve chess.

That is a bold claim, that needs backing up. As far as I see, the reason it took significantly longer to crack Go than chess is that latter is a western game, and the other is not, and thus early computer developers were significantly more likely to know about and thus inclined to tackle chess than they did Go.

Looking at it from a similarly biased metric, I could point out that it took decades to figure out how to program a chess AI, but the Go AI was developed in years instead. It also doesn't tell us anything about which one is "more strategic" because the reality is that AI techniques were originally targeted pretty much exclusively at chess to the exclusion of everything else, and only when chess was "beat" (or close approximation thereof) was a significant amount of effort pointed at Go and other games instead.

Grey Wolf

[Charybdis136]

That is a bold claim, that needs backing up. As far as I see, the reason it took significantly longer to crack Go than chess is that latter is a western game, and the other is not, and thus early computer developers were significantly more likely to know about and thus inclined to tackle chess than they did Go.

Looking at it from a similarly biased metric, I could point out that it took decades to figure out how to program a chess AI, but the Go AI was developed in years instead. It also doesn't tell us anything about which one is "more strategic" because the reality is that AI techniques were originally targeted pretty much exclusively at chess to the exclusion of everything else, and only when chess was "beat" (or close approximation thereof) was a significant amount of effort pointed at Go and other games instead.

Grey Wolf

Chess has 20 starting moves and GO has 361 (an extra if you count passing). Games of GO also have more moves than chess. Chess has an average of 40 (I am sure different sources many vary slightly) while GO averages what looks like 211 moves. If we are talking about trends more, to get a free move in chess would end the game even with a rather large skill gap. In GO the way you do handicap is to give the weaker player free moves on the board to start. I am competent in GO and I have to take 9 free moves to make the game fair against my brother for example. And this applies to professionals as well, the strongest GO AIs give professionals handicap stones because they are too good. I am not saying GO is better (even though I like it better) but to calculate with more available moves on every turn, and a longer game length in general, it would be harder for AI. I think GO also has a higher skill cap (for the related reasons) but that would be much harder to prove.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Chess has 20 starting moves and GO has 361 (an extra if you count passing). Games of GO also have more moves than chess. Chess has an average of 40 (I am sure different sources many vary slightly) while GO averages what looks like 211 moves.<snip>

Choice is not equivalent to strategic complexity. XCOM offers thousands of move options every turn (6 soldiers, plus hundred of move destinations on a grid, plus offensive actions). That doesn't make it more strategic than Go.

My point remains: there is no metric I know of of "strategic complexity". Choices is not it. Neither is AI development time, or AI completion date. Both games are really hard games to master. I remain really unconvinced by claims from either side that they are "deeper" or "more strategic" than the other.

Grey Wolf

[Charybdis136]

Choice is not equivalent to strategic complexity. XCOM offers thousands of move options every turn (6 soldiers, plus hundred of move destinations on a grid, plus offensive actions). That doesn't make it more strategic than Go.

My point remains: there is no metric I know of of "strategic complexity". Choices is not it. Neither is AI development time, or AI completion date. Both games are really hard games to master. I remain really unconvinced by claims from either side that they are "deeper" or "more strategic" than the other.

Grey Wolf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_and_mathematics
This could give some insight but I am also fine with there being no consensus. To be honest I just like talking about GO.

[Jasdoif]

As far as I see, the reason it took significantly longer to crack Go than chess is that latter is a western game, and the other is not, and thus early computer developers were significantly more likely to know about and thus inclined to tackle chess than they did Go.

I suspect a (possibly more?) significant part of this is also how chess moves take less memory to model, partly because of the smaller board but mostly because all its operations are dependent on small fixed numbers of positions (whereas capturing a group in Go calls for determining what the contiguous group is by keeping track of each piece in it, and then checking their neighbors to see if it's surrounded); chess would be much easier to work with while computer memory was still at a premium.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I suspect a (possibly more?) significant part of this is also how chess moves take less memory to model, partly because of the smaller board but mostly because all its operations are dependent on small fixed numbers of positions (whereas capturing a group in Go calls for determining what the contiguous group is by keeping track of each piece in it, and then checking their neighbors to see if it's surrounded); chess would be much easier to work with while computer memory was still at a premium.

Memory requirements of the next move in either system pale in comparison to the true difficulty: the branching tree of decision - reaction that must be built to "see" N moves into the future. I suspect that Go has a nightmarishly large tree, but that for chess, even if it does have a nominally smaller tree, the weighing the tree branches to min-max it is significantly worse, because "these branch loses me a horse to their bishop" is very hard to score, where Go is more "how many I capture" (both also need to factor in board control and other issues, of course, but my point here is that in chess, pieces change power levels as the game progresses, something that doesn't happen in Go, and that alone is a dimension of strategy that isn't factored in, e.g. number of board positions).

But honestly, I just picked ethnocentric bias because, in my experience, ethnocentric bias is usually the answer.

Grey Wolf

[Crusher]

All the recent vote changes have been added, please let me know if I missed anyone.

I did a quick eye-ball count (so, take it with a grain of salt), but it looks like the Xenocrysth has already nudged slightly ahead of the Glabrezu for 5th-ish place.

[Sir_Norbert]

But honestly, I just picked ethnocentric bias because, in my experience, ethnocentric bias is usually the answer.

I'd just go with "the original claim was unsupported". Neither game has been "cracked" and won't be for a long time.

[Charybdis136]

Memory requirements of the next move in either system pale in comparison to the true difficulty: the branching tree of decision - reaction that must be built to "see" N moves into the future. I suspect that Go has a nightmarishly large tree, but that for chess, even if it does have a nominally smaller tree, the weighing the tree branches to min-max it is significantly worse, because "these branch loses me a horse to their bishop" is very hard to score, where Go is more "how many I capture" (both also need to factor in board control and other issues, of course, but my point here is that in chess, pieces change power levels as the game progresses, something that doesn't happen in Go, and that alone is a dimension of strategy that isn't factored in, e.g. number of board positions).

But honestly, I just picked ethnocentric bias because, in my experience, ethnocentric bias is usually the answer.

Grey Wolf

In my link from before, it goes into the branches for GO. The number of potential games vastly dwarfs chess. And having different pieces does not mean there is more strategy or complexity. Pieces in chess only have a few purposes: to kill/threaten pieces or to protect pieces. In GO there is a whole concept of influence, there is taking territory, reducing, invading, attacking, defending, etc. So each piece has more purposes than it seems. I think having different kinds of pieces is less important than how many different functions each piece serves. Though this is probably too complex for us to parse out.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

In my link from before, it goes into the branches for GO. The number of potential games vastly dwarfs chess. And having different pieces does not mean there is more strategy or complexity. Pieces in chess only have a few purposes: to kill/threaten pieces or to protect pieces. In GO there is a whole concept of influence, there is taking territory, reducing, invading, attacking, defending, etc. So each piece has more purposes than it seems. I think having different kinds of pieces is less important than how many different functions each piece serves. Though this is probably too complex for us to parse out.

And that is indeed my point: I don't think we can definitely state one is "more strategic" than the other. Like I said, "number of possible games" is not that important. Any number of videogames with the strategic depth of a thimble (no matter how fun otherwise, lets be clear - I do love XCOM) have infinitely more possible games than either. Search space alone isn't a good enough measure and, honestly, even in conjunction with other characteristics, I'm not sure it is that relevant. Sure, we can discard games like tic-tac-toe due to their low number of possible games, but above a certian number, "bigger" becomes irrelevant. And while I don't know what the threshold would be ("somewhere between tic-tac-toe and chess" isn't exactly a narrow band), I am confident that both chess and Go are easily above it.

And you misunderstand my example. In Go, a piece has a strategic value based only on its position - in other words, all pieces are interchangeable at all times. In chess, however, the value of a knight vs a rook changes. The former's strategic value is maximized in a crowded field where its ability to jump is amazing, and peters out as the game progresses, whilst the opposite is true for the rook: at the start it is barely mobile, but becomes a strong piece by the end. And having a rook in a given position vs having a knight produces vastly different board positions, not just immediately but cascading down the search space. The strategic depth of chess, therefore, is not in the position of the pieces now, but their strategic value N turns down the road, and thus which ones you can afford to sacrifice and which ones you'll need. After all, the whole point of chess was to teach generals the value of careful sacrifice of their own troops.

(I'm also a bit concerned about how far off-topic we're going, so I'll leave this topic here. My position remains that I don't think it can be definitely stated that either one is more strategic than the other)

Grey Wolf

[Jasdoif]

And that is indeed my point: I don't think we can definitely state one is "more strategic" than the other. Like I said, "number of possible games" is irrelevant. Any number of videogames with the strategic depth of a thimble (no matter how fun otherwise, lets be clear - I do love XCOM) have infinitely more possible games than either.

XCOM is in an interesting place, in that it's a strategic resource-management game whose operations are primarily a tactical squad-based game; and it's all driven by interaction between the two (use your squad to get resources to research/build/promote so your squad will be better at getting resources, over and over again). It has a lot of delineation; unlike, say, chess and Go, where a move can be (and often is) strategic and tactical at the same time.

[Charybdis136]

More on the comic, I wonder how strong o-chul and MitD are at GO. I figure we can assume MitD is a beginner so he would be 20Kyu or something, but we never see much of their games and it saddens me. I would love to see their competitive strength.

[Bongos]

Well GO was a little too difficult for the MiTD or the TiTS to learn to play, so I reckon this divergence is entirely relevant to the the thread topic.

For that matter, I'm guessing chess would also be out of reach currently as well.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Well GO was a little too difficult for the MiTD or the TiTS to learn to play

No, it wasn't. According to O-Chul, MitD learnt it very quickly.

GW

[Baine]

I'd like to put my vote down for Protean, please.

What's a Xenocrysth, by the way? My attempts at googling it have been unenlightening.

[Bongos]

No, it wasn't. According to O-Chul, MitD learnt it very quickly.

GW

Well, he still got his butt whooped by Ochul.

I think Ochul was just trying to be nice.