Would you rather be lucky or good?

[Actionjick]

Gary played a game based almost entirely on skill. He controlled nearly everything (ball, clubs, address, grip, shot shape, etc). All those things he couldn't control (weather, course conditions, hole placement, etc) could be accounted for by proper application of skill. Nothing controls the dice. In ASL, it's possible to do EVERYTHING correct, the most skillful thing imaginable, and the dice will still SCREW you over. You can eek out all the DRM's you want, work your ass off to get to a position for just the shot you set up, and then dice. There is nothing you can do there, and if you are, you're cheating. No one said to Gary Player that hitting the ball 10 yards to the left to avoid the sand trap is illegal. In ASL, there is no "left" of the dice.

For me, that's the thing I hate the most about ASL. Doing everything right and then being fucked by dice. Of course, you can do everything wrong and be bailed out by dice, and I hate that even more. No lesson learned when the dice bail you out. The wrong lessons are learned when they fuck you over. -- jim

I never let the bad dice rolls bother me that much. Mainly because I seemed to have more good luck than bad. Lol well at least as far as Fish saw it!! I was always happy just to be playing. On occasion the dice could overcome Fish's even temperament with rather hilarious results! Not good for boards, dice towers, counters and the like but very memorable and only ever done in my company as far as I knew.

In a recent post it was described how eighteen squads were eliminated by a collapsed building! I have no idea how Fish would have reacted had I done that to him but could imagine shredded mapsheets and a pulverized dice tower flying across the room! Good times!!

 

[volgaG68]

Speaking of bad luck, I recently had a 9-hex IJA mob declare a Banzai, and all 9 MMC (non-Conscript) failed to produce a THH! 50/50 x 9! That will mathematically only occur 1 out of 512 times that 9-roll sequence is gone through. ALL 4s, 5s, and 6s.....

 

[Actionjick]

Speaking of bad luck, I recently had a 9-hex IJA mob declare a Banzai, and all 9 MMC (non-Conscript) failed to produce a THH! 50/50 x 9! That will mathematically only occur 1 out of 512 times that 9-roll sequence is gone through. ALL 4s, 5s, and 6s.....

Apparently the troops needed more sake.

 

[volgaG68]

Apparently the troops needed more sake.

What they needed was an advanced squad leader, not a sub-par one!

 

[Actionjick]

What they needed was an advanced squad leader, not a sub-par one!

I suggest next time you drink the sake!

 

[volgaG68]

I suggest next time you drink the sake!

IIRC, I was drinking some Tullamore Dew. They smelled the Irish whiskey on my breath and refused to follow orders.

 

[Actionjick]

IIRC, I was drinking some Tullamore Dew. They smelled the Irish whiskey on my breath and refused to follow orders.

A good commander knows his troops likes and dislikes. I'm surprised they didn't mutiny!

Of course not implying you are not a good commander!!

 

[Actionjick]

What they needed was an advanced squad leader, not a sub-par one!

Next time use Captain Sakana or Captain Dao. They'll whip those sake sippin' malingerers into a proper battle frenzy.!!

 

[Actionjick]

I never let the bad dice rolls bother me that much. Mainly because I seemed to have more good luck than bad. Lol well at least as far as Fish saw it!! I was always happy just to be playing. On occasion the dice could overcome Fish's even temperament with rather hilarious results! Not good for boards, dice towers, counters and the like but very memorable and only ever done in my company as far as I knew.

In a recent post it was described how eighteen squads were eliminated by a collapsed building! I have no idea how Fish would have reacted had I done that to him but could imagine shredded mapsheets and a pulverized dice tower flying across the room! Good times!!

The poster ( Martin? ) about the eighteen squad massacre said his opponent needed a smoke break afterwards. I'm sure Fish would have needed more than that!!

 

[Eagle4ty]

I look at luck in an ASL match as I viewed luck in combat, a situation at least representational in our game. In combat you can do everything correct to the best of your ability and yet luck of the draw can ruin not only your best laid plans but your whole day! Conversely luck can save your butt when it shouldn't have any reason logically to do so. I can attest to both extremes but thankfully for me at least the latter prevailed.

The best, or at least most memorable, conversation I had about luck in ASL was with Bill Hayward. Roughly paraphrased, he believed about 25% of the game comes down to the DR/dr outcomes. As long as you can maintain focus on what you must accomplish to achieve a satisfactory outcome, control those items you can control, lessen or at least restrict those items that your opponent controls, and diminish the effects luck may impose upon you; you should be able to come out ahead in at least a majority of your contests. The rub is of course your ability to do all four.

 

[von Marwitz]

The best, or at least most memorable, conversation I had about luck in ASL was with Bill Hayward. Roughly paraphrased, he believed about 25% of the game comes down to the DR/dr outcomes. As long as you can maintain focus on what you must accomplish to achieve a satisfactory outcome, control those items you can control, lessen or at least restrict those items that your opponent controls, and diminish the effects luck may impose upon you; you should be able to come out ahead in at least a majority of your contests. The rub is of course your ability to do all four.

This pretty much is what the late Christian Koppmeyer many years ago cast into one sentence when we talked about the game:

ASL is a game of chances.

You can try to optimize your chances and if you do so it will be to your benefit more often than not. However, you cannot control your chances.

I believe good ASL players are proficient in two things - acting upon probable outcomes and reacting to improbable ones.

von Marwitz

 

[BattleSchool]

Without luck, or more correctly, without the randonmess that dice provide to the system, ASL would be just another run-of-the-mill wargame.

Dice provide gradations of friction in ways that cannot be ruled out, in part, because they double as random-event generators.

Few ASL scenarios can claim a level of fog-of-war approaching real-world experience. However, dice help make up for this by interferring with a player's ability to control his forces. Even when he knows the exact composition and disposition of his opponent's forces, a player never has complete control of his own forces, and therefore cannot always capitalize on his omniscience.

Great commanders lose battles too. And so does that Goliath of ASL, Gor-Gor. Recently "lucky" double-ones robbed the perennial Gröfaz of victory. However, his track record suggests that players need a lot more than luck to beat the beast.

 

[von Marwitz]

Dice provide gradations of friction in ways that cannot be ruled out, in part, because they double as random-event generators.

The keyword in way of von Clausewitz.

von Marwitz

 

[von Marwitz]

However, his track record suggests that players need a lot more than luck to beat the beast.

Alcolhol? Scantily clad women dancing behind his opponent?

von Marwitz

 

[BattleSchool]

The keyword in way of von Clausewitz.

von Marwitz

Wer?

 

[BattleSchool]

Alcolhol? Scantily clad women dancing behind his opponent?

ovn Marwitz

Think big!

 

[von Marwitz]

Think big!

This video is not available in my country. It must be naked women with alcohol on the lap of his opponent...

von Marwitz

 

[atago44]

Gary played a game based almost entirely on skill. He controlled nearly everything (ball, clubs, address, grip, shot shape, etc). All those things he couldn't control (weather, course conditions, hole placement, etc) could be accounted for by proper application of skill. Nothing controls the dice. In ASL, it's possible to do EVERYTHING correct, the most skillful thing imaginable, and the dice will still SCREW you over. You can eek out all the DRM's you want, work your ass off to get to a position for just the shot you set up, and then dice. There is nothing you can do there, and if you are, you're cheating. No one said to Gary Player that hitting the ball 10 yards to the left to avoid the sand trap is illegal. In ASL, there is no "left" of the dice.

For me, that's the thing I hate the most about ASL. Doing everything right and then being fucked by dice. Of course, you can do everything wrong and be bailed out by dice, and I hate that even more. No lesson learned when the dice bail you out. The wrong lessons are learned when they fuck you over. -- jim

Leader directed 30 shot at stack of German engineers in building; nice low roll; all morale rolls passed, hero produced, fanatic engineer.

Yeah.

 

[BattleSchool]

This video is not available in my country. It must be naked women with alcohol on the lap of his opponent...

von Marwitz

Pity. Vintage 1963. Colossal archenemy.

 

[Sparafucil3]

Leader directed 30 shot at stack of German engineers in building; nice low roll; all morale rolls passed, hero produced, fanatic engineer.

You missed the rest: "Attack generated SAN, SAN activates, lands on the 30 FP kill stack, RS hits the 9-2, 9-2 dies to wound severity check, rest of the kill stack breaks due to LLMC". And yes, this has happened to me more than once. -- jim