Like a spectre that moans about dead problems, Sci-Show have made a YouTube video on the deep Mathematics of scheduling an RPG night.

Sci-Show on D&D Scheduling

Of course, the Greek-laden formula is just a vector to tell the audience about Maths, but I still can’t approve, because I couldn’t follow any of the Maths. So here’s some easier Maths for people who like RPGs, but don’t like Maths:

Standard RPG Setup

Each player has a 5-in-6 chance of showing up to a game. Before the game, the gods roll 5D6, and if any die lands on a ‘1’, the game is cancelled.

[ 2 ] [ 5 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 5 ]     Game on
[ 4 ] [ 1 ] [ 6 ] [ 4 ] [ 2 ]     Game cancelled
[ 3 ] [ 1 ] [ 4 ] [ 3 ] [ 1 ]     Game cancelled
[ 2 ] [ 5 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 5 ]     Game on
[ 5 ] [ 4 ] [ 1 ] [ 6 ] [ 6 ]     Game cancelled
[ 6 ] [ 3 ] [ 6 ] [ 6 ] [ 4 ]     Game on

Clearly, more players mean more games cancelled, which means more players are bad, and you must live in fear of people trying to join your game.

This is madness.

Realtime RPG Setup

In a realtime game, you open the table up to everyone, including people who can’t attend most games. These players only have a 3-in-6 chance of showing up to a game, but if you have 8 players then the gods will roll 8 dice before your game, and you’ll get around 3 to 6 players actually showing up on average.

[ 3 ] [ 6 ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 2 ] [ 1 ] [ 5 ] [ 1 ]    Game cancelled (2 players)
[ 4 ] [ 2 ] [ 2 ] [ 6 ] [ 2 ] [ 1 ] [ 1 ] [ 5 ]    Game on (3 players)
[ 1 ] [ 6 ] [ 5 ] [ 5 ] [ 1 ] [ 3 ] [ 1 ] [ 4 ]    Game on (4 players)
[ 6 ] [ 5 ] [ 3 ] [ 6 ] [ 1 ] [ 5 ] [ 4 ] [ 6 ]    Game on (6 players)
[ 6 ] [ 1 ] [ 5 ] [ 2 ] [ 1 ] [ 3 ] [ 2 ] [ 6 ]    Game on (3 players)
[ 6 ] [ 2 ] [ 6 ] [ 4 ] [ 1 ] [ 5 ] [ 3 ] [ 1 ]    Game on (4 players)