The odds

Last weekend, I watched GUYS AND DOLLS for the first time in years. I still love that movie, even with all its faults. I especially love the song that was added for Frank Sinatra's benefit, "Adelaide," in which Nathan Detroit, the gambler and ne'er-do-well, pays tribute to his betrothed. At one point he sings, "She wants five children to start / five's a difficult point to make," and one of the men in the chorus holds out three fingers; another holds out two. As a result of this move, I was today years old when I suddenly understood odds in dice, how 5 is a difficult point to make in dice because there are only two ways to roll it (4+1, 3+2) as opposed to, say, 10, because there are so very many ways to roll it (9+1, 8+2, 7+3 and so on).

I have spent the last 25 years in the company of RPG designers and card players. I have occasionally entertained myself with the idea that I could design a game myself. But it took a movie musical to get me to understand this most basic element of game design. I don't know if this makes me a genius or a moron (more likely somewhere in between, of course), but I feel a little like a dope that it's taken me all this time to understand something so fundamental.