this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 99 points 4 days ago (10 children)

It's math but with enough consulting of books and argumentation about rule mechanics that I swear lawyers would probably make better dnd players than mathematicians

so far all the sessions I've been to have at least one american chopper energy moment over rule disagreements and I love it

[–] Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 4 days ago (6 children)

The math is almost entirely arithmetic, so definitely agreed. Mathematicians don't even need to be that good at that, it's literally trivial to them. Nurses do more mental arithmetic every day than your standard mathematician.

[–] Ashen44@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 days ago (2 children)

every maths professor I've had in college told me to use the simplest numbers possible in my answers because arithmetic is annoying.

[–] SARGE@startrek.website 18 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Imagine if you had one of the greatest piano players in history offering to play you something, and you ask him to play the opening bars of "Heart and Soul", three times in a row.

Yes, they could do it, and do it perfectly.... But why would they want to do that when Claire De Lune or Für Elise exist. And yes, those are still fairly basic in the grand scheme of things but heart and soul is boring AF.

It's even deeper than that!

Basic arithmetic is to advanced calculus as a child playing on a xylophone is to composing an entire symphony. Mathematicians start by thinking about what math is and move up from there.

They don't have to actually be good at arithmetic any more than a composer has to be good at playing a xylophone.

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