Talk:Gemstone Dragons/@comment-75.159.130.16-20130409183459/@comment-5786363-20130428212523

The root of the issue on "how easily" some people get any given dragon versus another person is the issue between the differecnes of Probability and Statistics.

Statistics works across the entire spectrum as it creates a % Of X-Outcome Of Instances Over Time. If X has a 3% chance Statictically, all that means is over a large enough sampling pool or long enough period 3 of every 100 will end up as X. Because the mathematics use both, what that means is a sampling group of 100 users 3 will likely have X, or 100 instances of any number of users (from 1 to 100) then 3 attempts will produce X. But Statistics are not hard, it's only "likely" that 3%, usually because that number is derived from a massive sampling pool (hundreds of users over thousands of tries, counting the results might give you that idea that 3% of the time you have Result X).

Probability, on the other hand, is a hard set number. Any given Instance you will have a 3% chance of getting X. What that translates to is you could do something 5000 times, and each instance can still fall in the 97% of the Fail Rate, meaning you've gotten 0 X.

Statistics are useful, up to a point. They give you an idea of the overall structure, but Probability is what actually happens when you try it out.