Chess track (Elo rating thread)

[ZMiles]

A game I'm trying to start is based heavily around a chess match. Knowledge of chess will thus be something that is at times helpful (or harmful) to the players, so in their bios, I'm going to ask for the character's Elo rating if they play.

From Wikipedia, Elo ratings correspond to skill level according to:

RATING      SKILL LEVEL
2851          Highest rating in history (Garry Kasparov)
>2600   World Championship contenders (the NPCs are in this range)
2400–2600   most Grandmasters (GM) and International Masters (IM)
2300–2400   FIDE Masters (FM)
2200–2300   FIDE Candidate Masters (CM), most national masters
2000–2200   candidate masters, experts (USA)
1800–2000   Class A, category 1
1600–1800   Class B, category 2
1400–1600   Class C, category 3
1200–1400   Class D, category 4
1200-0100  novices
0100           Minimum possible rating

Logically, a high Elo rating should be correlated either to a good Scholarship score, a good score in some other category with an appropriate stunt (i.e., a high Performance score for a character who is able to throw opponents off with acting), or other stunts (like 'Chess Prodigy' or 'Extensive Training.') I'm not sure how to try mapping these, though; a 2-refresh stunt 'Chess Genius' should give more Elo points than a 1-stunt 'Talented at chess,' and a 5-scholarship character should have the possibility of being much better at chess than a 2-scholarship one (all else being equal) but I'm not sure by how much.

Does anyone have experience trying to map a rating system to DFRPG, or any ideas on how best to do so?

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm pretty sure you're going to have to use aspects here at least a bit. Some Scholarship 5 characters are going to be useless at chess.

It might be appropriate to run chess as a conflict with Scholarship determining attacks and defenses and stress tracks. Other skills could be used to maneuver, block, or Declare.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

I'm pretty sure you're going to have to use aspects here at least a bit. Some Scholarship 5 characters are going to be useless at chess.

It might be appropriate to run chess as a conflict with Scholarship determining attacks and defenses and stress tracks. Other skills could be used to maneuver, block, or Declare.

I pretty much agree but it doesn't help too much if you need to determine their ranking ahead of time.  How about start them with a base of 2000, roll fate dice, and add/subtract 100 for each +/- for that?

[ZMiles]

I guess I'm thinking of treating the Rating sort of like languages. An additional Scholarship point allows a character an additional language fluency (although it isn't mandatory), so I was thinking that an additional Scholarship point could allot a character some additional amount of chess ability. But I agree with Sanctaphrax that aspects will also be important.

(Chess ability won't only be important for actually playing the game -- there will be places where the characters will need to accurately analyze games to determine, for instance, if one of the players has been mind-whammied to play unusually).

[Haru]

I think chess is way to complex to only take one skill into account. Pretty much the whole bandwidth of social skills can contribute to the success of a player.

I have no idea how the elo rating is accomplished, but I guess it is sort of a chess-IQ, measured not objectively, but against other players? If that is the case, calculating a rating out of character stats is going to be pretty hard, because you would also have to take into account things like years playing and much more.

I think it would just be easier to assign a rating as an aspect (or part of one) that you can compel/invoke on all things concerning chess.

[ZMiles]

I'd like there to be something to roll against, though.

[UmbraLux]

You might relate a given rating to a success level.  With a range from -2 for a rank novice who barely knows the rules to +8 for someone capable of making Kasparov sweat.  Then pick the skill(s) you want it to be part of...or even a separate skill if it's a major part of your campaign. 

I'd suggest something like Scholarship limited by one of several skills which form your play style.  Limiting skills might be Deceit for players who try to mask their attacks, Rapport for those who try and predict opponent's actions, and Presence for those who drive straight at their goal.  Discipline might be a second limiting skill to avoid falling into an opponent's trap. 

Players nearing Kasparov's level probably have multiple skills (and therefore tactics) available to them. 

[Haru]

The thing is, there could be an analyst who knows a lot of things about chess and could better analyse a player than another player (higher scholarship + stunt), but in a game, the player would be better (by combining empathy, deceit, rapport, performance, etc.). The "World class chess player" aspect would then only be one of many things contributing to it.

If you want the characters to need some time to solve a riddle, give the riddle 2 numbers: a very high target number and armor. A character can then proceed to collect shifts like it was a thaumaturgic ritual. The result of a roll will be lowered by the armor and the remaining shifts will then be added up until the target number is met.
example:
t:20/a3 riddle, 1 day per exchange. The character has a scholarship of 5, so he will also roll a 5 on average, unless he can tag something. That means he will solve 5-3=2 shifts per day on the riddle and solve it in 10 days.

The armor prevents characters with low skills from having any real chance of solving the riddle unless they get really creative, and it still provides a challenge for highly skilled characters.

But I just don't think you'll be happy with the result, when you cut down a scale of 2800 to 5.

Depending on how far you want to flesh out a game of chess, you could give each player a "chess track", including extra consequences that only work for that particular game. After that it becomes a social conflict between the 2 players until one is taken out. Or let them use their original stress tracks and consequences, if you want to keep things shorter.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Thing is, your ELO rating has nothing to do with how good you are at chess unless you've played enough games to firmly establish a steady number.  You could have a chess prodigy who could smack Kasparov around like it was easy but had only gotten his ranking up to 1500ish so far because he hadn't played enough highly ranked opponents.  Don't try to equate skill to ELO rating unless the character has been competing long enough to warrant being able to have a high rating.

[ZMiles]

Hmm. I do like the idea of a 'chess track'. Or maybe even a chess Skill -- maybe alloting everyone 1 additional skill point, and then adding 'Chess' to the skill tree:
-1 points = how do the horsies move, again?
0 points = heard of the game, know the basic moves.
1 point = played a few games way back when -- novice level.
2 points = played a bunch of games -- chess club level.
3 points = can hold one's own in a tournament.
4 points = Can occasionally win a local or state tournament.
5 points = 'Expert' level, can usually win smaller tournaments and can compete in larger ones.
7/8 points = 'International Grandmaster' level, the incumbent world champion Flints and his challenger Petrovitch would be here.

There should be some trappings that are focused on the game, but also others that can be used outside of it so the skill doesn't become totally useless whenever the characters aren't around/watching/trapped in/etc a chess game.
Trappings could be:
'Chess player'. Self explanatory, controls how good the character is at chess.
'Strategy knowledge'. "What to do when there's nothing to do." Sort of a longer term Investigation, rolls could be used to help either determine the strategy of other characters, or to help figure out what good strategies would be at a certain point. Useful both on and off the board.
'Tactical knowledge'. "What to do when there's something to do." Maybe some kind of Assessment bonus, or maybe a bonus in combat for things like figuring out which of three thugs should be attacked first. Useful both on and off the board.
'Style analysis'. Chess specific trapping; allows the ability to determine a player given a game based on knowledge of their style (or, alternately, determine that a player is not playing normally and Something Is Up).


And then there could be stunts that assign one particular trapping to another, like usual (i.e., "Chess Scholar: you've studied the game extensively and memorized thousands of openings, endgames, and completed sequences. You can use Scholarship instead of Chess for the 'chess playing' and 'style analysis' trapping.' 'Actor on the Board: your ability to use body language to trick and deceive invariably lures opponents into disasters. You can use Performance for your 'chess playing' trapping.' 'First-hand combat knowledge: you've fought a lot, and it's given you a great knowledge of tactics. You may use Fists for the 'tactics' trapping.')


Thanks for the ideas. You all have given me a lot to think about (and I agree that the idea to just have an Elo rating number was probably a bad one).

[Sanctaphrax]

The new skill looks good. If chess is a big enough deal in my game to make it worthwhile, I'd use it.

Just one quibble: I don't think it'd be appropriate for the masters to have Epic or Legendary skills. I've always thought that human potential more or less caps out at Fantastic. Of course, I'd expect them both to have a whole pile of chess-related stunts, so...they'll probably be rolling Legendary+1 for their Chess Playing rolls anyway.