Probabilities in a game inhabit a strange sort of warped space-time in which they don't mean the same thing as they do in the real world. Have a 20% chance of kicking your attacker's gun out of their hand before they shoot you? Those are good odds! Go for it!
Have a 3 in 20 chance of not rolling lethal falling damage when attempting to jump across a ravine that you have a 1 in 4 chance of making it across? Not a problem! Hand me the dice!
Need to roll a natural 27 on 3d6 to avoid the lion and get to the last ice cream? Yeah, I'll take that chance! Mmm... ice cream!!
The cool thing is, it frequently works.
In the real world of the Docs & DeLoreans universe, of course, Back to the Future doesn't exist. That's the premise of this entire comic, after all. But most of the other things we know and love (such as flux capacitors) do, albeit modified by the lack of Back to the Future:
- Jiggaballs is a serious documentary about human-sized hamster balls.
- Michael J. Fox is known (barely) for doing voiceovers for poorly selling computer games, but gains widespread fame after his appearance in the first Futurama movie.
- Christopher Lloyd is known primarily for his role in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
- Nerdy guys make YouTube videos of themselves performing cheerleader moves instead of driving locomotives into ravines.
- Without the success of Back to the Future to spark interest in time travel movies, 12 Monkeys was never revived with a movie and a new series, and remains an obscure short-running TV show.
- The Time Machine was never made into a film. H.G. Wells fans never had it so good.
- The major time travel background that pervades all of Western culture is Los Cronocrímenes, despite it never being much good. The original film was remade recently into a new, updated television series with a bigger budget, high-tech computerised special effects, and edgy writing. And it sucked.
- Throughout the 2020s, all the greatest Hollywood blockbusters were reality cooking competition movies.
- The Comic Irregulars exist and are making a screencap comic based on Futurama.
Transcript
Doc Brown: Oh Clara, you dance divinely!
Doc Brown: I put a ton of points into Acrobatics. A fifth level Dancer can totally dodge bullets!
Buford Tannen: Mind if I cut in?
Doc Brown: Tannen!
Buford Tannen: Where's my $80?
Clara: I somersault over his head and snap his neck!
GM: Roll.
Clara: 1.
GM: Critical failure. You're in a grapp... um, I mean, you end up dancing with him.
Clara: Right. I kick him you-know-where.
Seamus: Wait! He's got a gun! If you fail again, you'll get shot. Use my pre-rolled die!
Clara: 20! Thanks, Pete!
GM: Critical hit! Tannen collapses.
Doc Brown: Hey, we're learning about this in maths. Dice don't work like that!
Marty: I've been trying to tell Pete that for years, Sally. It's no use.
Doc Brown: Wait. Where exactly did he get hit?
Marty: Hey, you know what's really interesting? Probability!