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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 15, 2012, 09:20:24 PM »

I experience this sensation quite a lot...

I agree with everything you said here. It seems that a lot of RLs are like the bastard children of devs. They push them out to build up their chops, but then abandon them when they are capable of flashier projects. As for system, being a better programmer doesn't necessarily make one a better system designer. Frankly, I think the best system designers (for obvious reasons) are (some) PnP designers, though they can't program, so their systems would never make it to a RL.

I know of a few instances in academia where developers create an AI that handles randomly generated levels.

That's rather elaborate, clever, and probably unnecessary. Anyone smart enough to design that kind of an AI should be smart enough to govern their own RNG-based elements.

I have recently read up on this thread and it just screams for some trolling.

I assume you're the troll, in which case, should we be ignoring you?

You guys appear to suck badly at roguelikes and thus make excuses for lowering the difficulty instead of increasing your skill.

A developer of Crawl stated that even best players should die 10% of the time.

Just in case you were wondering, this is where you contradict yourself. You're basically saying that a player who cannot achieve the impossible (depending on the RNGs mood) is not a good player.

You're also missing the point. Because so much of the game is the product of the RNG, your strategy is pretty limited. Your strategy generally cannot hinge upon specific enablers or any environmental variables, as they are all randomly generated and therefore you cannot count on them. All you can do is gen a PC, shoot for a survivable build and go through the motions hoping you don't get boned. I don't feel terribly engaged (mentally) when I'm playing a RL. I run through a limited set of "what ifs" in my head, maybe do some simple calculations (DPS, enemy strength vs. my own), but for the most part, the RNG dictates my actions.

So, I suppose my original point in this thread is that I was looking for RLs that engage me more (mentally). In other words, something with more active thinking. Though at this point, the thread has gone off in a few different directions (about RL design, and design in general), and I'm cool with that, as it's an interesting conversation.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 13, 2012, 02:51:14 PM »

We do need to be thinking about improvements, and we should not turn a blind eye to problems, but please remember that this a community of hobbyists, and do not compare their work with big-budget games—or compare their hobby with flipping a coin and ‘dumb luck’.

First, I'm certainly not making a comparison to big budget games. If so, A/V would have been a cornerstone of this conversation. I don't really even care that much about a plot, it's more of a tangential topic. For a video game, Diablo did it well enough for me, and it was a pretty simple plot. I think it would be easily possible to implement it, and would kick things up a notch, but it's not the be-all-end-all of RL.

If I were to pick one thing to criticize, it would be system, and you don't need an AAA production studio to kick out a top-notch game in that department. There are plenty of indie PnP designers who put out clever work and they're essentially hobbyists. When I did tabletop, I'd occasionally whip up my own homebrews that went over well with the players. That's all system is, resolving action with as much mathematical grace as you can muster. Having a novice background in Python, I have a fair idea as to how much work it takes to code a game, and anything to simplify things (without loosing efficacy) is welcome. It boggles my mind that people choose to code clunky, convoluted, elaborate systems, when a much simpler and more effective system would do the trick.

As for dumb luck, let's face it, it plays a role. If you do everything right, and still fail, you've just been screwed by chance. What isn't free will is fate. In that sense, you can compare it to a coin toss (though the coin toss has better odds ). I think it might be difficult to see how chance is the ultimate governor in something like RL, as the games are so long and there are many factors that influence the numbers, but it's there.

While that's true, the difference is that Chess is a strategic board game, whereas Rogue (borrowing on your example) is a Hack-And-Slash, Dungeon-Crawl, RPG with Random Content Generation and strategy elements.  No Chess players expect a plot, let alone complain when there isn't one, whereas anyone who's played an RPG is probably used to a linear, plot-driven game.  I'm not saying we should all start demanding plot, but I think your comparison isn't an exact match.

I agree, but I think the plot topic is besides the point. I don't remember how we got on it, but I'm sure it was just some tangent that happened to pop up.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 12, 2012, 03:29:11 PM »

I think the major problem of "plot" is shared with many main-stream, plot-heavy games.  Once you play through the "story," there is little replay value.

I both agree and disagree with that, mainly because of two games, Planescape:Torment and Fallout 2. I've only played PST once, beat it, and put it on a shelf. The characters, setting, and story was so great in that game I feel like I'd cheapen the experience by playing it again. Despite having no replay value for me, I do not regret in the least the money I spent on that game. In fact, I would have gladly spent more (I think I got it for $30). OTOH, I've played FO2 more times than I can count. Sure, I know the story in and out (and I also think it's great), but it's just one of those games where it's always fun to take another run. The bottom line is that you can have a game with a strong plot and great characters, and people may still want to replay it.

Plus, its incredibly hard to make a coherent, completely random story.

Well, the story doesn't have to be random for the rest of the game to be. Take Diablo, again.

I just want to add one thing to this, that most rl's are still in active development.

Yeah, I noticed this at the Basin. The full game list has around 1000 games on it, but if you filter to stable games, you have only about 100 or so. Many of them are 7DRLs, and some of the rest are stable but still not complete. Other than the major RLs, I've seen very few that can say that are actually "done".

At least in my case, I have a lot of interesting plot details to get into my game, but I just have been focusing on content rather than details.

I checked out your page when you mentioned that. The multi-window approach was also used in Sil, but your layout is much cleaner (and more readable). I also like the tileset you're using. While I'm fine with ASCII, I certainly don't mind a nice tileset.

Since we're on the subject, I noticed that you're a grad student at Rensselaer. I also did the grad school thing (just finished a couple years ago), though my field was Sociology and Statistics. I also tinkered a bit with Monte Carlo simulations, but I'm sure how we use it in stats is different than in physics. My specialty had nothing to do with video games, but what I learned along the way totally changed the way I look at them (and games in general). I'm curious, has anything similar happened with you in your academic career? And, if so, how?

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 12, 2012, 02:49:16 AM »

And that would suck...if that's what we were talking about.

That is what I'm talking about. The orc situation I mentioned above was that 1 in 100 situation. I had no "trump" at my disposal, no recourse that could have saved my ass. I had many similar situations in DoomRL. Eventually, in all probability, a game is going to end that way. I've been surfing RL boards for a while now, and have seen a lot of experienced gamers say things like, "Not that I've ever beat such-and-such RL, or any RL for that matter..." or "I've hardly heard of anyone beating it." Are we saying that a majority of gamers, and not just any gamers, but pretty hardcore gamers who are playing on a higher level than your typical GTA-Madden-Mass Effect-Wii Sports-playing gamer, pretty much suck?

Games without an explicit narrative often give way for the player to make one for themselves, and that's usually what roguelikes allow for.

But there is an intended plot. Delve into the dungeon and retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, for example. The plot is pretty flat (with the climax and conclusion being almost identical), but a plot is there. And theme is there, too, even if someone flubs it up by doing something like putting kobolds in a Middle Earth game. These all contribute to a narrative.

Not taking responsibility for the more creative aspects of the game is a cop out. Look at Diablo, which is often categorized as a RL (I'm not 100% sure I agree, but whatever). It had plot, theme, an internally consistent setting. They really covered their bases and even built on it for the sequel. The short of it is I don't think a RL is helping itself by cutting creative corners.

Where's the journey in Minecraft, or Civilization, or Sim City? Where's the journey in League of Legends, or Counterstrike, or competitive Starcraft?

If we're looking at RLs in that regard, then I suppose I should look at it like a tabletop RPG and focus on the system (which I do with any tabletop RPG). To be frank, I've fiddled with a fair number of RLs, and have yet to see one with a system that dazzles me. Sil does some interesting things with its system, but other than that, I've only seen a bunch of unoriginal, clunky systems lacking in elegance. I mean, so many games are derivative of d20 (which is rubbish for so many reasons), or some incarnation of D&D. Most of them have pretty much the same gameplay, too. Use items to identify them, zap wands, drink potions, bump to melee, etc. It's all the same.

I suppose you could also look at it like one of those kinds of books that talks about a thousand years of the big bad, with hundreds of heroes dying at his hands, until that one hero comes and beats him.

There's a reason why people tell tales of the hero that survives, and not the hundreds of poor schmucks who died attempting the same thing. I think permadeath should and could be utilized better so that your characters' likely deaths would be more interesting.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 11, 2012, 03:58:09 AM »

This is why I'm not picky when it comes to setting: ultimately, I care far more about the mechanics and gameplay than I do the aesthetics, whether sensory or thematic.

I can understand and respect that perspective, but I care about both. IMO, one of the things that makes video games unique is that they engage both the left and right brain, so to speak. I mean, if I just wanted pure mechanics, I'd play chess. You can't go wrong there.

The direction of this thread seems to less "roguelikes that require skill" and more "roguelikes that fit into an increasingly-narrow set of constraints".

Yeah, we've definitely strayed a bit, but all in good, clean fun. As a noob to rogue, I think part of the process is finding one's niche, and this discussion has been helpful with that.

It's one of those "the journey is more important than the destination" analogies, I guess...

I'm not sure if I think that analogy applies here. I'm not really talking about how RLs end proper (especially since I've never seen one). I was talking about how my journey is constantly being interrupted by, well, dying and starting over from scratch, often due to circumstances beyond my ability to correct. In my last Sil death, I turned a corner and immediately saw a room with a half-dozen orcs, who saw me and could move as fast as me. There was no way for me to know what was there before I turned the corner. Running wasn't an option. Really, the only thing I could do is backpedal to the point where I could bottleneck. It was the best option in that situation, but I was still taken out by the last orc.

See, here's the thing. Let's say you're playing a game, and for every single conflict, the odds are in your favor 99:1. Those are pretty good odds. For a single conflict, you can virtually count on a victory. In fact, over 10 conflicts, your odds are still 9:1. However, by 100 conflicts, it drops to a little more than 3:1. By 500, it's a miracle if you've yet to have that one encounter that puts you six feet under. Chances are, that one encounter isn't even going to be a respectable death, either. It's just going to be the logical result of the game wearing your PC down. To be honest, that orc death I mentioned before was the only cool death I've had. That's like a big screen movie death. The PC was fighting off the horde, and almost made it, until one lucky strike from the last combatant took him down. However, all my other deaths have been very unsatisfying.

What is the journey, anyway? That's been mentioned by a few posters, and maybe I'm just not sure what that means. That is, without a plot or character development (in a literary sense), the "journey" is just the game mechanics. Every RL I've played has been pretty clunky in that regard. If I were to make my own RL (and I'm considering doing it with Python once I become better acquainted with the genre), the two things I would change before anything else are the control scheme and the system.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 10, 2012, 07:58:40 PM »

I tried frozen depths. It was ok, but it didn't grab me. I've been toying around a bit with Sil. I'm not a fan of the race mechanics, but otherwise it seems pretty catchy. Actually, I'm also not a fan of the control scheme, but that's pretty much par for the course for a RL.

I suppose the low/high fantasy thing is relative. I started with D&D long before I even knew about Tolkien. Even worse, my GM did a lot of Forgotten Realms which has always been a little munchkiny. With LoTR, you don't have any fireballs, wish spells, vorpal swords of instakill, etc. It's a lot more low-key in comparison. That's one of the things I like about Sil, their magic system is basically just some uselful but not overpowered songs with magical effects.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 10, 2012, 02:04:05 AM »

I really like the way dungeons of dredmor does this.  There are a bunch of "class" skill trees, and the only thing that decides what type of character you are is which skills you choose.  You need to choose them in order (i.e. I need to pick skills 1-3 of pyromancy to get to skill 4) but you can pick out of whatever skill paths you want without any restrictions.

I think this is actually the smartest way to do things if one cares at all about verisimilitude in game design. Unless these class categories are meaningful within the setting, they are just artificial design shortcuts to me.

I guess my point here is that when I play a new game I like class restrictions.  It lets me get into the game quicker because I don't have to worry about details.  Then once I have a good understanding of the game, I would like to be able to experiment without restrictions.  Some games do this quite well actually.  Dungeons & Dragons Online...

That right there is the problem. Sure classes are great when you're getting to know a game, but once you know it they get in the way. I'd rather have a classless system with a slightly steeper learning curve, than a class-based one I'm stuck with once I have a feel for the game.

As for DDO, I don't know much about that, but D&D/D20 is the reason I dislike class systems so much, especially with 3e forward. It's pretty much a meaningless exercise in metagaming at this point. The flipside to this is the CODA system (which did the LoTR tabletop RPG). It was a class system, but the classes were culturally relevant in Tolkien-world (whatever it's called). However, very few systems are clever like this.

This actually gets me thinking. I've already previously expressed my distaste for high fantasy. All the fireballs, teleporting, zweinhanders, and other absurdities are too kitschy for me. However, it was also stated that it's hard to get away from fantasy in RLs. What about a low fantasy setting? That's one of the things I liked about the LoTR setting. For the most part, magic was low key. Magical items were rare and important. People (except for maybe Gandalf) were ordinary mortals without any inherent supernatural abilities. Are there any RLs that really tone down the flash?

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 09, 2012, 01:58:17 AM »

I totally agree that this is a more interesting type of advancement, but my point is that you could count up the number of things you have gained and still call that level.

Well, you could, technically. I mean, it's a computer game so at the end of the day everything boils down to 1s and 0s. However, to do what you are saying (under a qualitative-oriented system), the player would have to take an extra step to establish such a measure, which would be intrinsically irrelevant to the game.

if you are growing qualitatively (or Skill-by-skill, which seems a little more layman's-terms-esque), it can be hard to represent where you are and what you can do with a single number.

That's the point I'm making, and I see this as a good thing. A lack of a numerical representation makes a character's standing more ambiguous (which forces more "guessing"), but it also takes the player out of the metagame more (which I think is a more valuable result).

Have the game recognize what type of skills you are raising and then display a class from a list, rather than for instance choosing a class at the start.

For the most part, I'm not a fan of class systems, either, unless they (and the restrictions they impose) are truly meaningful and necessary according to the game's setting. I've rarely seen any game pull this off.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 08, 2012, 05:39:41 PM »

I'm confused how getting to level 25 is not an accomplishment compared to dying at level 15, if you consider getting to the 25th dungeon level an accomplishment compared to dying at the 15th, etc.

i think the term leveling can be confusing when talking about RLs. There's character level and game level (or dungeon level). What I've been talking about is character level.

Idk, then you are more skilled but the enemies are also more skilled.  How is that conceptually different?

I think/hope he is talking about a more qualitative advancement.

I guess my point is that unless the end game player is the same player they were at the beginning of the game, there is going to be some measure of how different they are, and you can always map that to a numerical value.

Not necessarily. What if you started a game, but the only options available to you were movement and a melee attack. Along the way, you pick up other skills, ranged attacking, stealth, etc. Your character is growing, but qualitatively instead of the typical your-strength-increases-by-one approach.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 08, 2012, 01:33:10 AM »

The idea of winning as sort of the only acceptable outcome of gaming is really weird to me. Most of the old arcade classics like Joust and Defender inevitably ended with your death. It was about using your skill and experience to get the most points possible and do the coolest shit possible, to demonstrate your dominance over the game itself and your competitors.

Yeah, but many arcade-style games are simply unbeatable. You just play until you die. Most, if not all, RL games have a definitive ending to the game, establishing a very specific goal.

Roguelikes are a Brontë novel in a world full of streaming cheerleader porn movies.

RLs might be a clever concept, but I don't know if I would make that analogy. That is to say, in some ways, RLs succumb to the same gimmickry mainstream developers use. One feature in particular that comes to mind is leveling. It's a very artificial and ultimately redundant feature. You gain levels and get more powerful, but so does everything else, effectively nullifying an real effect of leveling. However, it's a feature generally implemented because it gives the player an (illusory) sense of accomplishment. Granted, you can argue that levels in a RL are a milestone of how long the character has survived, but I would say this is still unnecessary and even breaks the suspension of disbelief. In other words, with leveling, players say, "My character died at level 12" instead of "My character died in the Swamps of Suck."

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 06, 2012, 12:12:23 AM »

First, what's prime? I checked the basin, the temple DB, and googled it but came up with nothing.

What I can tell you is that it is not about winning. I play for the beauty of design. I grew weary of the repetitive grinding design of other games.

How is RL not a grind? Repetitive levels of dungeon crawling until you get ganked and have to start over. Not to mention, there's little or no plot development (which I like in a game, when it's written well). That seems pretty grindy to me.

And, I'm not looking to win each time I play. But, when I lose, I'd like to feel like I accomplished something, even if I just chipped away the tiniest amount towards a greater goal. I'm not feeling that here.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 05, 2012, 03:47:51 AM »

I think in poker, the payoff would be a bank account with negative numbers in it.

Exactly. If I play poker and lose everything, I'm not going to be happy about it in the end. With RL, if there was some kind of metagame element where your losses all built towards something game-wise, I think it would make dying more worthwhile.

The "long run," as you put it, is the moment when you finally win!  I haven't won anything yet, but just imagine how great it would feel to finally win, after hundreds (if not thousands) of deaths.

I honestly don't think it would feel that great by that point. I mean, it would take a completely mind-blowing earth-shattering ending to make it worth the countless failures it took to get there. I've only seen endings like this a handful of times in my life (between books, video games, and movies/TV) I doubt that's possible in a game with minimal plot. I bet the ending is usually just some text that reads "Congrats, you won. Now visit your mom, she's wondering where you've been the last four years. And, maybe you should take a bath, first."

Really, keep trying.  Rogue-likes are incredibly fun.

I will. Maybe I'll take a crack at Brogue.

If you know where you are going to die within five squares, stop going to those five squares.

I would if I could, but the five squares happen to be at one of the few non-randomly generated points in the game where I absolutely have to go through a bottle neck that springs an ambush surrounding me with the one enemy that is highly resistant to the weapons I have to carry for this character.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 04, 2012, 01:54:36 PM »

I strongly recommend DCSS.

I've seen a lot of recs for DCSS. I even played through part of the tutorial. The gameplay wasn't bad, but all the talk about elves, swords, magic, etc. kinda turned me off. Maybe I should give it another chance...

"Maybe I've been lucky with my choice of RLs, but I almost never come across a situation where I feel like I got beaten by dumb luck.  When I die in a RL, my immediate reaction is 'Darn, I should have done A instead of B a couple turns ago!'

I have been in the same situation. However, at the point where I had to decide between A and B, it was an educated guess (not knowing the future of the rest of the game), and B was the better choice.

Get nothing?  This is something I have to disagree on.  The game is fun to play, and though it ends at some point (winning or dying) it's not the end that matters.  You should be having fun playing.

Playing is fun, but the (death) endings are so anti-climactic that I feel I just wasted my time. Living is fun, why not make dying fun as well?

David Ploog, actually believed that even the 'perfect' player should lose about 10% of games or so.

That's just kinda mean, if you think about it. If success isn't guaranteed even with "perfect" playing, and there's no reward for failure, it's really an exercise in masochism.

Is there luck involved?  Yes, because it's random and that is almost inevitable (if it isn't, I think you start moving into the puzzle game genre).  But your skill will determine just how good your chances are.

This makes me think of blackjack. Blackjack is actually more chance than skill. It just so happens that the chances are relatively close to even (compared to other games). However, work the (right) tables properly, play the odds, and count cards, the odds swing slightly in your favor. Now, even in these situations, you're going to lose a lot of games. But, in the long run, you'll come out ahead. If RL games are generally meant to be "lost", I would think there should be a "long run" towards which you can work.

And here I must refute you, since I have made a bleak post-apocalyptic roguelike about an alcoholic trapped down a mineshaft - it's called Broken Bottle.

I played it a couple times. Actually, since you mentioned it I'm playing it a bit again.

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Other Announcements / Re: a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 04, 2012, 03:53:53 AM »

You're right. I don't "get it", but it doesn't mean I can't. I want to get it. I really do. I'm so bored with mainstream games. And, the travesty that was called Fallout: New Vegas finally broke me and drove me to take my interest in gaming in a new direction.

So, I'll say stuff now. Feel free to rebut. I hope you (or somebody) does, because I really do want to understand this.

Playing roguelikes is not about winning. It's about playing.
...if you are mostly concerned about NOT dying within an hour of gameplay and winning frequently

Let's forget "winning" for a moment. So, you pick up a new RL. You're learning the game, and you're dying a lot as part of the learning process, starting over, utilizing what you learned. Now, with a better understanding of the game, you're adjusting your strategy, but you're still dying a lot and having to start from scratch. What have you accomplished? With DoomRL, all I've accomplished is dying just as much, but at a more consistent point of the game. I can build a character for one of the challenges, and unless I get a certain random drop by a certain point, I know exactly where I am going to die (literally within 5 squares), regardless of strategy for that particular situation.

I don't mind dying at all. In fact, one of my favorite games ever put an interesting twist on dying in video games (Planescape: Torment). But, when you die in RL, it usually because you've been boned by fate, and you get nothing for your efforts. It really is a gamble, like going to the casino, except with worse odds. Imagine playing poker and never having the option to fold. You have to play every hand through, even when you know you're screwed. What's the payoff?

And another thing, why are more RLs (even newer versions) fantasy? In fantasy, the basic idea is that you win the magic sword, slay the BBEG, be the hero, get the girl, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't seem to jive with a game that emphasizes chronic death. What about PA RLs? There's, like, none of them. You could turn The Road into a RL and call it Roadlike. Considering how bad that movie ended, I would look forward to dying in a tributary video game. My point is, considering the spirit of RL, why not a game where death is its own bittersweet consolation prize for lack of victory?

Anyway, that's where my head is at, though I do want to try and get something out of RLs.

In my opinion, this is a pretty legitimate complaint about roguelikes. At the same time, however, it's one of the hardest obstacles to overcome for a developer of roguelikes. Consider...

I totally agree with everything you said here. From the player perspective, games look pretty "simple", but from a designer perspective, they are so much more complicated. I had taught myself python a while back for my own game design purposes, which was eventually derailed due to a philosophical dilemma somewhat similar to this conversation. It's something I still ponder to this day.

With this in mind, I'd say Brogue really strives to give the player a challenge while preventing as many luck-influenced deaths as possible. Don't get me wrong, it's a freaking hard game: I believe that the developers designed their difficulty such that even the best players will find it hard to achieve success reliably. Still, it's probably closer to what you're looking for than most other roguelikes.

How is this different than any other RL? If you're the best player, but still getting boned enough to prevent reliable wins, clearly its "fate", not your own skill.

I find this funny because players I would consider good at the game can pretty handily win a game in well under an hour.

I totally agree, and I've seen the YAVP threads to prove it. I think you've actually replied to one of my posts over there (the dual vs. single pistol thread). Above, when I was talking about being able to predict where I die within 5 squares, it's my AoMr character. Whether I go for DW, MSs, MGK, MCe, I always die in HNTR in exactly the same place within 5 squares without fail. I would say that level of consistent failure is a testament to skill. It's just not very fun.

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Other Announcements / a RL that requires skill?

« on: April 04, 2012, 01:37:16 AM »

Basically, I'm looking for a RL where success is largely based on some kind of ability and not dumb luck. Read on for details (and probably a rant).

I (relatively) recently discovered RL and have been playing a few different RL games lately. I'm not really into fantasy, so I've been focusing on other settings (DoomRL, Decker, a couple others). I read the guides, learned the systems, and this is the conclusion to which I've come. That is, it takes very little skill/strategy to play RL games. Or, more accurately, skills and strategy are of minor use in RL games. The bottom line is that the odds are so stacked against you, success is most definitely going to rely more on dumb luck than any ability. For example, with DoomRL, I'm usually dead within an hour. As much as I have mastered cornershooting, giftdroppng, and even dodging (for what it's worth), it's only a matter of time before I find myself in an I'm-pretty-much-screwed situation. I don't feel like I'm being challenged with RL, I'm just biding my time until the game randomly spawns my guaranteed death.

Also, I'm gonna say it, Vi is dumb. No really. Tell me, what makes more sense for simulating the cardinal directions on a keyboard. hjklyubn, or how about qweadzxc? Take a look and think about it. I do quite a bit since I'm playing on a laptop.

On the bright side, from these experiences, I've invented a RL LARP. Here are the rules:

1) Flip a coin, and let it land on the floor.
2) If it's heads, you lose.
3) If it's tails, you lose.
4) If it lands on it's side, cures cancer in a 100 mile radius, and completely repairs the ozone layer, you win.

There are two difficulty levels, easy and hard. For easy, use a nickel. For hard, use a dime.

So, uh, yeah...any RLs not contingent upon dumb luck?