Critical Miss: Issue 2 [Realism in Roleplaying]

Realism in Roleplaying

Accuracy Vs Precision

It's experiences like this that get me wondering if those who espouse so-called "realistic" games haven't lost site of the objective.

I once did a course in cartography (map-making) and remember one lesson where we discussed the difference between accuracy and precision. Now I'd previously thought that these two words meant the same thing, but they don't.

For example, consider the two targets below:

The first target shows a fairly wide spread of hits. However, if you took an "average centre point" of the shots you would find that it lay fairly close to the centre of the target. The second target, by contract, shows a neat cluster of hits - which are clearly not centred on the target.

The first set of hits are not precise, but they do accurately mark the centre of the target. The second hits are a precise cluster, but they are not accurate.

Where the hell am I going..?

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