Here's the deal.

My group of Players are planning on getting to Yag'Dhul and they could arrive (IRL) as early as next week. I'd like to be able to hit my players with a bunch of Givin greetings. However I'm a bit lazy in the math department.

Lost? The Givin are a race of mathematicians, and their society is a meritocracy based on how well you can calculate complex math in your HEAD. So part of the Givin etiquette is to greet each other with a mathematical problem. As a slide rule note, the Givin also understand that most visitors are mathematical dolts and so many of their math problems for non-Given come up with a result of "3."

So by next week, I'd like to have a 3-4 math problems on hand to toss at the players casually.

Here's what I've got so far.

"What's the Square Root of 9." (Obviously 3).

I did come up with this one today and while I'll use it it's not appropriate.

"So, with a triangle with side A equal to 7 and side B being equal to 4 according to Pythagoras, what's the percentage chance of Schrodinger's cat being alive?"

(If I come up with anything else, I'll post it here for reference).

27 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

"So, with a triangle with side A equal to 7 and side B being equal to 4 according to Pythagoras, what's the percentage chance of Schrodinger's cat being alive?"

It supposedly really kinda depends on the mental state of the person looking into the box, and how much they like cats.

There are 3 things many players I've over the years dislike about gaming.....

Math .

😜

Replace initial social rolls with Knowledge (Education) checks. That's a knowledge skill that doesn't get too much love, I wouldn't neuter players that invest in it.

14 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

Here's the deal.

My group of Players are planning on getting to Yag'Dhul and they could arrive (IRL) as early as next week. I'd like to be able to hit my players with a bunch of Givin greetings. However I'm a bit lazy in the math department.

Lost? The Givin are a race of mathematicians, and their society is a meritocracy based on how well you can calculate complex math in your HEAD. So part of the Givin etiquette is to greet each other with a mathematical problem. As a slide rule note, the Givin also understand that most visitors are mathematical dolts and so many of their math problems for non-Given come up with a result of "3."

So by next week, I'd like to have a 3-4 math problems on hand to toss at the players casually.

Here's what I've got so far.

"What's the Square Root of 9." (Obviously 3).

I did come up with this one today and while I'll use it it's not appropriate.

"So, with a triangle with side A equal to 7 and side B being equal to 4 according to Pythagoras, what's the percentage chance of Schrodinger's cat being alive?"

(If I come up with anything else, I'll post it here for reference).

Are you actually going to test the player's with these math problems? Or are you just looking for some accurate math problems to use in your dialogue? Because if the first, I would just let them roll for it with their skills. That's the whole point. A player doesn't have to be an oratory master to play a Face character, that's what the talents are for.

If you are just trying to "sound native" given their culture...well, I dunno, I'm not really up to speed on math these days myself.

The point is to use the Givin Greetings as flavor. I don't expect the players to do any actual math. One player in particular seems up to speed about the Givin so he may know the basic "trick," BUT I'm planning to have some greetings that are simply mind boggling. However if they come across a particularly surly Givin, I'd love to break out something like a quadratic equation. Something so mind boggling that the players (and PC's) just melt.

I did think of a basic question that a Givin might employ with an off worlder.

"What is the result of thirty seven less parenthetically three squared plus five squared end parenthetical."

Again, I have a week.

...so, this culture's greeting system basically boils down to

Givin: Blah blah blah mathy mathy math math, number number dear visitor?

Person: 3

Givin: Good day to you too! *waves and moves on*

I mean, is this how they operate? Because...even for Star Wars, that's really insanely dumb. It's almost as bad as the idea from Star Trek, that a species reached interstellar technology and travel without developing a language beyond the capacity of metaphor for communication. Darmak and Jallad at Tanagra is a great story, but man is it dumb. This feels like that flavor of dumb from Star Wars.

On 12/2/2019 at 11:11 AM, KungFuFerret said:

...so, this culture's greeting system basically boils down to

Givin: Blah blah blah mathy mathy math math, number number dear visitor?

Person: 3

Givin: Good day to you too! *waves and moves on*

I mean, is this how they operate? Because...even for Star Wars, that's really insanely dumb.

I think it's probably more akin to that episode of Futurama where they visit Leonardo da Vinci's home planet of geniuses where mathematics are just the norm, considering the fact, lore wise, they can plot hyperspace jumps without a navicomputer.

• Determinant of a 3x3 matrix (if you need one that actually equals three, this would be the best type of problem)
• An integral that requires integration by parts at least once (integral of xsin(x)dx)
• A differential equation that needs to be solved by LaPlace Transform (du/dx+2x(du/dt)=2x)
• Finding the kernel of a linear transormation from R3 to R2

I wouldn’t ask the PCs to solve them directly, but have them do like a hard Knowledge-Education check with a setback for time and 2 setbacks for having to do it in their head.

How many PCs are in the party?

I'm a fan of how the number seven is divided into repeating decimals, with the same digits in order.

1/7 = 0.142857

2/7 = 0.285714

3/7 = 0.428571

4/7 = 0.571428

5/7 = 0.714285

6/7= 0.857142

Perhaps something involving that?

-Nate

There are 3 consistent PC's with a 4th who is struggling with work scheduling conflict issues (call it 3). But I could be picking up another two players later this month!

And tonight is the night that the PC's arrive at Yag'Dhul. (Another good reason for me to be checking this thread again).

"What is the quad root of 81?"

I'm picturing something like this.

The session went well.

I got the predictable responses from the players.

One player LOVED the Givin and their penchant for dropping random math questions.

The face player HATED the whole experience. He even balked at the one Givin who asked him "What's 1 plus 2" and NEVER figured out that all of the questions had the answer of 3. The highlight for me was when this same player, when encountering a Givin later in their stay blurted out "Seven!" upon meeting the new NPC. And the response he got was "equals three plus four." (The other players got a kick out of that).

Good flavor for this planet (of the week) and overall a ton of fun.

18 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

The session went well.

I got the predictable responses from the players.

One player LOVED the Givin and their penchant for dropping random math questions.

The face player HATED the whole experience. He even balked at the one Givin who asked him "What's 1 plus 2" and NEVER figured out that all of the questions had the answer of 3. The highlight for me was when this same player, when encountering a Givin later in their stay blurted out "Seven!" upon meeting the new NPC. And the response he got was "equals three plus four." (The other players got a kick out of that).

Good flavor for this planet (of the week) and overall a ton of fun.

Should have hit him with 42 .

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Should have hit him with 42 .

Don't know if the Givin are THAT advanced. 😉